


The Liar's Kiss

by QueenOfSmokeAndMirrors



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Anti-Hero, Bully Draco Malfoy - Freeform, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Darkish Hermione Granger, Enemies to Lovers, Espionage, F/M, Hufflepuff Harry Potter, Indian Hermione Granger, MI6 Agents, Morally Ambiguous Character, Muggle Culture, POC Hermione Granger, Ravenclaw Hermione Granger, Revenge, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Sexual Assault, Sexual Content, Sexual Harassment, Spies & Secret Agents, Spy School, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2020-10-24 21:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20712968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfSmokeAndMirrors/pseuds/QueenOfSmokeAndMirrors
Summary: Hidden high in the mountains of Scotland is the Hogwarts School, a training ground for future MI6 agents...with magical powers. When she's recruited against her will, Hermione Granger finds herself the most tempting minnow in a pool full of sharks. And hungriest among them is Draco Malfoy, who's determined to see her dead - or worse, expelled.Dramione spy AU.





	1. The Liar's Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised! 
> 
> I've set it in 2016, purely because that was when I was sixteen and I wanted to follow a timeline I was familiar with to avoid getting mixed up. As you can probably tell, I put a lot of my own Muggle experiences in it. The story isn't fully planned yet so an update may not be forthcoming immediately. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! And, before I forget - I've started a new one-shot collection which will be updated from time to time, so do check it out if it sounds like your jam.

**“Time’s** up, put your pens down!”

The invigilator’s voice echoed throughout the darkened, stiflingly hot school hall. All around Hermione, pens clattered onto the surfaces of desks, girls shifted in their chairs, and there was a collective sigh of relief. It was over. The GCSE exam season for the Year of Our Lord 2016 was finally finished, and in front of thousands of Year 11 pupils, there lay nothing but a long, hot summer.

Hermione did not move. Her pen had already been down for twenty minutes.

She handed over her answer booklet without demur to the invigilator and stood up the moment she was allowed to, stretching out her muscles. English Literature was a two-and-a-half-hour exam and it certainly felt like it to her back, which twinged in protest. Then she gathered up her pencil case and left.

Every other girl erupted into chatter the moment they left the hushed, funereal silence of the hall.

“Did you have enough time to –”

“Did you finish the –”

“Did you get how –”

Knowing that none of the questions was directed at her, Hermione went straight to her locker to collect her bag. At times like this she was glad that she had no friends to gossip with about the exam. It had not gone as well as it could have.

Certainly, it had not gone _badly_. She had been predicted fifteen A*s by her teachers, and she had no doubt she would get them. But she disliked English Literature excessively; all anyone ever seemed to do in fiction books was be emotional, and it was irritating. Her gift struggled with emotions. Their set text _Of Mice and Men _in particular was a book which was apparently saturated in emotion, or so Miss Greengage kept telling her, and Hermione’s mechanical analyses of rhetorical devices never scored as highly as something which ‘captured the essence of the novel’ (in Miss Greengage’s words) would have.

She dismissed the flash of annoyance which always sparked across her skin when she thought of her English teacher. There was no point in getting all worked up now. After all, she had taken the final English exam of her life. She would be leaving Queen Elizabeth County High School for Girls, her local grammar school, in favour of an elitist public school in September. Assuming she made the grades for her offer at Westminster School – which, of course, she would – she would embark upon A-level courses designed to prepare her for medicine applications next October. Biology, Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths, and History would all be on her timetable. English most certainly would not.

The mid-June sun beat down on Hermione’s head as she left the school and made her way to the train station. A fine layer of sweat coated her back and stuck to her lilac blouse under a thick navy blazer. It was only two p.m., long before the schools in the area let out their inmates, so she had the train almost to herself as she climbed on board.

Thank God. Like most of London’s other ancient Tube lines, the Northern line was utterly bereft of air conditioning and absolutely hellish when students and commuters were packed in elbow-to-elbow like sardines at rush hour. Settling herself into a padded seat well away from the handful of other passengers, Hermione opened her bag and slid out a book.

_The Final Days_, an account of the 1972 Watergate Scandal by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, was nearly 500 pages long with minute font. It would have taken the most dedicated reader two days to get through all of it.

Hermione placed her hand, palm down, over the closed cover, and inhaled. By the time she let her breath out again, every word of the book was imprinted in her memory.

She was not sure when she had first realised that she had a gift. Had it been in reception, when she’d astounded her parents by relating a complete summary of _Lord of the Rings? _Or perhaps Year 2, when she’d realised that she’d absorbed an entire biography of Lady Anne Boleyn merely by brushing her fingers over the embossed title? It was impossible to tell for certain. But in any case, the fact remained that she, Hermione Granger, in all other respects a perfectly normal middle-class sixteen-year-old girl from north London, had the ability to gain knowledge not just from reading books – but by merely _touching _them.

Naturally, a gift like that did wondrous things for her academic life. The information from maths, science and history textbooks fell into her head like snowflakes from the sky. But her gift had one great limitation: it failed to appropriately transmit emotion.

She knew she had feelings herself, and she could understand the literal _words _of emotional scenes. She was able to objectively comprehend, for instance, that George was upset at being forced to murder Lenny, or that Lenny felt shame when he accidentally killed rabbits. But subtleties escaped her, and she struggled to see how these feelings directly impacted the characters' actions. It was this lack of consideration which had always led to frustratingly reduced marks in her essays.

She’d even tried reading _Of Mice and Men_ the proper way, page by page, to see if that helped. It didn’t.

So for leisure reading she stuck to the most factual books she could find, and chomped through dates or geometrical proofs with ease. What doctor needed to read fiction anyway?

The train arrived at her own platform, Tufnell Park. Hermione stood, hitched her near-empty bag up higher on her shoulder, and began her meandering way to her house. As soon as she got home it was time to begin early revision for her A-levels. Her gift wasn’t accompanied by any enhanced memory ability, so she needed to put as much effort as the next person into actually _remembering_ what she read. She had no other plans for the summer, no friends to visit or holidays to go on, so she might as well ensure she knew every moment of the 1789 French Revolution by heart.

Her three-storey house was tall, narrow, and terraced, its deceptively limited width concealing the expansive size of the rooms within. A few anaemic weeds had sprung up between the cracked grey stones paving the front garden. Both of her parents would still be at their dental surgery, so Hermione fished out her key from her pocket and unlocked the door herself.

The low rumble of voices made her pause. They were home early, weren’t they? She frowned as she heard her mother’s high voice undercut by an unfamiliar burr. An alien pair of stocky, sensible leather shoes had been placed neatly beside the shoe rack.

Guests were a rare occurrence in the Granger household. Having toed off her brogues, Hermione padded soundlessly on socked feet towards the living room.

Incredibly, both her parents were indeed home – as was someone else. Hermione’s gaze swept over the two Doctors Granger, both lean and dark-haired, her father in corduroys and her mother in a light sari from her native India. Then it settled on the stranger in her living room.

The woman was undoubtedly old, but it was impossible to tell precisely how much so. Though her pale skin was lined and jet-black bun was liberally threaded with silver, her green eyes glinted with sharp intelligence, and the slant of her nose was suggestive of some great bird of prey. She was dressed in a white blouse and a skirt fashioned from a single large piece of tartan cloth, secured with a giant safety pin. The woman rose as Hermione entered the room.

“Ah, you must be Hermione,” she said before her parents could speak. Her accent was heavily clipped but identifiably Scottish.

“Yes, I am,” Hermione said warily. She darted a lightning-fast glance at her parents. It slowly dawned at her that both looked somewhat shell-shocked.

“Excellent,” the woman said briskly. “My name is Minerva McGonagall. You may call me Professor McGonagall.” She offered a wrinkled hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Hermione said. Her social skills were rusty, but that seemed like the right thing to say, rather than _What are you a professor of?_ She gave McGonagall’s hand a perfunctory pump and was vaguely surprised to find that the woman’s grip was almost painfully firm. It was a relief to be released.

Hermione backed away and dropped into the only free seat left in the room, on the leather sofa between her parents. Her mother offered her a forced smile.

“Good exam?”

“Not too bad,” she said. She kept her eyes on McGonagall, who had settled back into her armchair and was watching them with her fingers steepled.

The living room was filled with two things: light and books. The afternoon sunlight radiated down through the wide windows, directly into Hermione’s eyes, forcing her to hunch slightly to avoid being blinded. McGonagall smiled slightly at the sight.

“Well, Hermione, I’ve never believed in beating about the bush,” she said. “You have a gift. For want of a better word, a magical gift. Yes?”

Hermione stiffened. Except for her parents, nobody knew about that. “Yes,” she said cautiously. Had she given herself away at school somehow? Had McGonagall come to perform governmental tests on her? The muscles of her legs tensed unconsciously.

“Could you describe your gift to me?” McGonagall asked.

Hermione shot a look at her father. He smiled reassuringly at her, pushing his glasses higher up his nose as they slid down. “Go on, sweetheart,” he said.

Haltingly, Hermione began. “I can… absorb written knowledge,” she said. “I put my hand on a book, and after a moment or two, it’s like I’ve read it – even though I haven’t turned a single page.”

McGonagall nodded, unsurprised, and Hermione realised that she had already known this. “Have you noticed any limitations to your gift?” she asked. "Things about it which trip you up?"

“I’m not very good at understanding the emotional motivations of fictional characters,” Hermione admitted.

McGonagall smoothed down her tartan skirt. “Yes, that sounds about right. Our gifts always come with a catch,” she said. “Well, Hermione, no doubt you’re wondering exactly who I am. I am an employee of MI6.”

Hermione waited patiently for the punchline. McGonagall stared back expectantly.

No punchline appeared to be forthcoming. Her father coughed delicately. “We believe she’s telling the truth, sweetheart,” he said. “I realise this is uncomfortably reminiscent of – of James Bond, and all that sort of thing, rather like a joke in poor taste, but she’s convinced us.”

“Has she,” Hermione said. Her voice was flat with disbelief.

“Your suspicions are entirely natural,” McGonagall said. “Allow me to allay them.”

She turned into a cat.

Hermione choked and jerked backwards. Where the human woman had been sitting was now a large, fluffy ginger feline, its eyes the same intelligent emerald, with odd markings around them a bit like spectacles. The cat looked at her coolly for a long moment. Then Hermione blinked. When she opened her eyes, McGonagall was back in the armchair, regarding Hermione with identical eyes.

“Well?” she said.

Hermione swallowed drily and looked at her parents again. They looked strained but not surprised, meaning the professor had already done this in front of them.

“Well, I certainly believe you have a gift,” Hermione said. “But I don’t see what this has to do with MI6.”

“The government is aware that a small percentage of individuals in the country are born with a variety of gifts,” McGonagall explained. Her pink tongue flickered out daintily to wet her lips, the most catlike move she had made so far. “You will only rarely see two gifts the same. Each one is important, and represents an invaluable chance to assist the country in protecting itself and others from the growing extremism threat. I am sure a girl as intelligent as you is fully acquainted with the news.”

Hermione nodded silently. Extremism was certainly on the rise, in both the East and West of the world. Only last Friday, she had been dealt a staggering blow with the victory of Brexit’s Vote Leave campaign, Britain’s first truly post-truth, populist movement. Meanwhile in America, an equally post-truth and populist Donald Trump appeared likely to be voted the next president in November. Terrorist attacks in France and Germany had also added to the generally tense atmosphere.

“The world is currently balanced on a knife edge,” McGonagall said. “MI6 needs special agents now more than ever. And that is where you, and people like you, come in. All over the country, gifted sixteen-year-olds are being informed of the existence of the Hogwarts School, a sixth-form boarding college up in Scotland, where teenagers with powers are trained to become Aurors – that is, special agents for MI6.” She looked at Hermione expectantly.

Hermione did not often laugh, but she felt the urge to do so now, hysterical giggles rising up in her throat. This was insane. A sixth form just for magical teenagers? Run by MI6? In Scotland? It was like some badly written novel, one of those repulsively emotional ones she disliked so much.

A line from a Sherlock Holmes story – one of the few fiction books Hermione had been able to truly understand and enjoy – abruptly drifted through her head.

_When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth_.

She discreetly pinched herself. Not a dream. So that was out. She had certainly seen McGonagall turn into a cat; more importantly, so had her parents, and it was highly unlikely that the event had been some sort of mass hallucination. Grangers were not the type to hallucinate.

And after all, she did have a gift she knew was scientifically impossible. Why couldn’t she believe in more impossible things, like a cat-shifting MI6 agent inviting her to a secret Scottish school?

“What happens at Hogwarts, precisely?” her mother asked suddenly. “You hadn’t quite gotten to that bit when Hermione got home.”

“Training,” McGonagall said laconically before expanding. “We will teach you how to harness your skills and become an asset to both the state and yourself. I don’t deny it will be difficult. As I said, very few people have the same gifts as someone else, and all gifts have some sort of weak spot to them. You, for instance, can absorb knowledge instantaneously, but it has stunted your emotional growth; I can turn into a cat, but my gift has had unfortunate implications for my diet which I will not discuss in detail. Suffice it to say that I never eat with an audience.”

Stung at the ‘stunted emotional growth’ comment, Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Become an asset to the state,” she repeated. “That’s the part which concerns me, Professor McGonagall. I’m not so sure I want to become one of those.”

McGonagall looked thoughtful. “Assuming you had never heard of Hogwarts, what were your plans for the next five years?”

“Receive fifteen A*s on results day on the twenty-fourth of August, 2016,” she replied promptly. “Start at Westminster in the autumn of 2016. Study five A-levels. Obtain a medicine offer from Trinity College, Cambridge in January 2018. Receive five A* on results day in August 2018. Begin studying medicine at Cambridge in October 2018 –”

“Yes, I can see you have it all planned out,” McGonagall cut in. “But what of your friendships?”

“Friendships?” Hermione echoed, as though she had never encountered the term before.

“Everything you have told me is linked to your academics,” McGonagall pointed out. “Results, university offers… where are the trips with friends? Outings with family?”

She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “I don’t see how –”

“I doubt you fit in at school, Hermione,” McGonagall interrupted ruthlessly. “You’re blindingly intelligent, and in a grammar school like yours, I’m sure it has won you enmity. Your gift only aids your naturally formidable intellect. I suspect you don’t often enjoy the company of your peers.”

A dull flush worked its way into Hermione’s cheeks. Owing to her Indian mother, her skin was a honeyed brown which rarely expressed redness, but a corrosive embarrassment was working its way through her veins. She knew she was friendless but she hardly wanted to hear that a stranger knew it too.

“I’m not trying to be unkind when I say this, Hermione,” McGonagall said softly. “It’s perfectly normal for Muggleborns like you to struggle in Muggle educational establishments.”

She seized on the unfamiliar term. “Muggleborn?”

“A gifted individual born from Muggles, that is, parents not gifted themselves,” McGonagall explained. “Mostly, you’ll find that powers follow familial lines. Magical people tend to marry each other, and so powers are often concentrated into pureblood families, so called because every member of them possesses a gift of some description. A significant fraction of Hogwarts students are purebloods. Half-bloods will have one gifted parent and one Muggle, and there are a fair number of them too. You, however, are a relatively rare case of a Muggleborn, with an ancestry which is completely free of gifted influence.”

Hermione’s lips twisted. She disliked discussions of ancestry. She had never felt particularly attuned to the loud, unbearably social culture of her Indian relations, but nor could she bring herself to like her white father’s side of the family, who viewed her mother with suspicion. McGonagall saw her sour expression and misinterpreted its cause.

“Being a Muggleborn is not a bad thing, Hermione,” she said. “There may be a pureblood or two who attempts to give you grief for it, but come straight to me and I’ll sort it out for you. And if it helps you, know that the most gifted girl I have ever had the pleasure of teaching was a Muggleborn just like you.”

It did help. Hermione turned to face her father. “Dad? What do you think?” She twisted. “Mum?” An odd impulse was urging her to agree to this insane plan, but she needed to know what her parents thought first.

“It’s up to you, Hermione,” her mother said. “I have every faith that you will make a spectacular doctor, if that is what you still wish to do. But…” she hesitated. “I must say I like the thought of you being with teenagers more like you, who’ll understand you. I know it’s been hard on you, having to hide your gift from your classmates.”

Left hanging in the air: _having to deal with being utterly friendless. _

Her father nodded. “You don’t _have _to work for MI6 in the end, Hermione. This is only sixth form. You can apply to Cambridge next October from Hogwarts just like you always planned.”

“That’s true,” Hermione said. She met McGonagall’s green gaze.

She had never done anything so reckless in her life. But maybe that was why she was Hermione Granger, the girl with no life outside her laptop, surrounded by textbooks she could read as easily as other people read postcards.

“I think,” she said slowly, “I want to go to Hogwarts.” 


	2. The Liar's Welcome

Hermione's mother hovered anxiously by the doorway.

"Are you sure you won't let us come with you?" she said, hands twisting in the vivid blue fabric of her salwar kameez. "I really don't think it's wise to embark on this journey without us, Hermione –"

Without looking up, Hermione methodically focused on lacing up her trainers in the entrance hall beside their front door. "No, Mum," she said. "It'll be fine. I can handle it myself."

It was the first of September. Hermione had received her GCSE results, the expected reel of A*s, last week: but instead of currently wriggling into the navy-and-grey uniform of Westminster, she was in jeans and a jumper, waiting to arrive at Hogwarts where she would change into its own uniform. She had no intention of spending the six-hour train ride to Scotland in Hogwarts's requisite black trousers and blazer.

Two trunks packed with her belongings had already been sent ahead. All she would be bringing now was a single mildly battered suitcase.

Her father frowned at her from his position halfway down the staircase which overlooked the entrance hall. "You shouldn't be dragging that great big thing around with you if you don't need to be," he said. "At least let me come with you so I can pull the suitcase for you!"

She shook her head resolutely. "No, Dad," she said. "I want to do this myself. Anyway, I'd really better be off now if I want to get there in time."

Before leaving, Professor McGonagall – who, it transpired, was the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts, as well as the teacher of an impenetrable subject called 'Transfiguration' – had informed Hermione that her uniform and 'welcome pack' would be sent to her shortly. They had been. In the pack were a number of documents detailing her next steps. She had to arrive at King's Cross Station in time for a prompt departure to Scotland at eleven a.m., apparently from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters; when Hermione had demanded an explanation for this impossibility, McGonagall had merely told her that any station employee would be able to direct her to the correct place upon receipt of the password 'fizzing whizzbee.' At that point Hermione had been tempted to succumb to the suspicion that the entire meeting was a sustained hallucination brought on by exam stress. Only the knowledge that her parents were listening to all of this madness too staved off the disbelief.

It was now ten-thirty. King's Cross was not far from Tufnell Park, only a few stops on the Northern line. Hermione winced as her mother crushed her in a strangling hug.

"Take care of yourself!" she ordered. "Text us as soon as you get on the train, alright? And then again when you reach Hogwarts. We'll expect regular phone calls, too."

"Of course," Hermione said. She dutifully withstood the hug and permitted her father to subject her to the same affection. Then, disengaging gently, she stepped back and grasped the handle of the suitcase.

"Well, goodbye," she said.

The suitcase rattled over pebbles behind her as she strode along the street, dragging it along as she went. It was an overcast Saturday morning. The sky was grey with storm clouds, and a distinct mugginess in the air soon forced her to strip off her jumper to reveal a plain white T-shirt underneath. She heaved the suitcase onto the train with a slight punch of effort and sank silently into an empty seat.

To Hermione's irritation, she had not received any textbooks for her upcoming lessons. All she knew was that Hogwarts would be providing her with magical training; when she had asked which exam boards they used for A-levels, McGonagall's answer had been displeasingly vague. She had been equally reticent on the topic of how precisely she had discovered that Hermione possessed a gift. Only the fact that McGonagall had confirmed she would still be able to submit an academically competitive application to Cambridge next year had allayed Hermione's concerns.

As long as she still had that out, she wouldn't be trapped without any other option but MI6.

Since she was textbook-less, and not in the mood to absorb the biography of Lenin resting in her rucksack, Hermione listened to music instead. Lana del Rey's laments to lost lovers did little to stimulate her emotionally but even she could appreciate a pleasant tune when she heard it. All she had to do was filter out the emotion-saturated lyrics and concentrate on the catchy beat.

She got off at King's Cross. The immense Victorian pillars holding up the vaulted ceiling soared high above her head, a testament to Lewis Cubitt's architectural genius. Hermione zigzagged around clusters of her fellow travellers as she made her way to the international section of the station.

Predictably, there was nothing between platforms nine and ten, even though she had given in to the tiny impulse to check. It was time to ask a station employee… and hope they didn't immediately transport her to Bedlam. She selected a harmless-looking old man in the orange hi-vis jacket denoting staff status and paced tensely up to him.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," she said in a low voice. "I'm told the password is fizzing whizzbee."

She held her breath. Surely, this was the moment when the great scam would be revealed. MI6 didn't want her; in fact, MI6 didn't even know she existed. The true impossibility of the situation would finally assert itself. A ball of combined fear and anticipation rolled around in her belly.

The man squinted at her. He was tall but stooped over, and utterly bald on top.

"Ah, so you're one of that lot, then," he said in a broad Scottish accent. "Follow me, lass."

Hardly daring to breathe, Hermione trailed after him.

They made their way through the station until they reached a nondescript door set into the wall marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. The man indicated it.

"Just go on through," he said. "It's on the other side."

Before she could thank him, he melted back into the crowd. Wetting her dry lips, Hermione pushed the door open and walked in.

She was immediately assaulted by noise. Rather than the office which the door looked like it ought to conceal, there was a platform like those in the rest of the station, laid out in the signature red brick arches of a major London terminal. A glossy black train with a circular red face waited at the platform edge. She stared incredulously at the billows of smoke it was belching out of a chimney. Was that a _steam engine_? She hadn't seen one of those since her infant obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine.

The noise wasn't just coming from the train. Up and down, all around the platform, were people. People of all ages and colours, laughing, hugging, talking... Immediately, she realised two things. Firstly, the vast majority were already in their Hogwarts uniforms, meaning she stuck out like a sore thumb. Secondly, most people had not just their parents but their siblings with them.

Hogwarts was a sixth-form college, meaning it educated only those in Years 12 and 13 – in other words, sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds. She could see children much younger than that scampering around, meaning other people had decided to bring their entire families with them.

Slight regret at her decision to go without her parents began to manifest itself. She had thought it would give her more confidence to be without them: she always felt like she did better when she was alone. But seeing the families on display around her, she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake. She would have liked them to be here now, seeing her off as all the other parents seemed to be doing.

Well, she couldn't teleport her parents here, but she could fix the issue of her clothing. Avoiding the chance of any accidental eye contact by keeping her head ducked, Hermione manoeuvred herself and the suitcase onto the train. It was old-fashioned on the inside as well. A long corridor, with enclosed compartments dotted along it, stretched out in front of her. She made her way along it until she came to the toilet at the very end and locked herself inside.

The toilet consisted of a single cramped cubicle like an aeroplane bathroom. Squeezing herself against the walls, Hermione unzipped her suitcase. Fortunately her Hogwarts uniform lay neatly folded at the top – no rifling required. She took out the crisply ironed black trousers, white blouse, and black blazer. After some hesitation she also slipped out a black woollen jumper. The Scottish Highlands would be colder than central London. Lastly, she swapped out her trainers for dark leather ballet pumps. Ties were also part of the ensemble, but since their colour depended on which house she would be sorted into, those would be provided at Hogwarts itself.

When she emerged, she instantly felt far more prepared to face whatever social onslaughts the rest of the day would bring. School uniform was truly a blessing – no way to differentiate rich from poor, fashionable from basic.

The compartments were beginning to fill up now, with only five minutes left before departure time. Hermione shot off a quick text to her parents assuring them of her arrival and wandered up and down in search of an empty section. Each and every compartment was occupied, as could be discerned from a narrow pane of glass set high in the doors. Finally, in defeat, she chose the one with the fewest number of people and knocked politely.

"Would you mind if I sat here?"

The inhabitants were two boys sitting facing each other. She blinked, but otherwise strove not to betray the fact that she had attended an all-girls school since the age of eleven and had only limited experience with teenaged males. These specimens were particularly striking. The first was black-haired, with narrow, sensitive features and shockingly green eyes tilted up at the edges in a manifestation of some Oriental ancestry. The other was a flaming redhead possessed of a spray of freckles across his creamy skin. Even sitting down she could tell that he was remarkably tall, well over six feet, and his eyes were an arrestingly bright shade of blue. Naturally both were in their own Hogwarts uniforms.

"I'm Hermione," she added, determinedly maintaining her composure. She was an intellectual, she reminded herself. Physical appearances meant nothing to her.

"Yes, of course, come on in," the dark boy said. He leapt to his feet almost automatically. "Want any help with that suitcase?"

"No, I'm alright, thanks," she said. She sat next to the redhaired boy and rolled the case over. "I, um, hope I'm not intruding."

"Nah, you really aren't," he said cheerfully. "Harry and I have only just met ourselves! I'm Ron Weasley, by the way, and like I said, that's Harry."

Relief rushed through her. This was her first real chance at making friends. These boys didn't know each other themselves – they weren't already locked into an exclusionary mentality, the sort she'd encountered on her few attempts to insinuate herself into established friendship groups. They were willing and eager to welcome her.

"I'm guessing you're in the Lower Sixth too?" Harry asked. "Just joined Hogwarts?"

"Yes," she admitted. "I didn't even know it existed until a teacher showed up in my house in June! It was right after my last GCSE, and you can imagine how I felt getting home to the discovery that the government wanted to recruit me…"

Harry laughed, but Ron whistled. "Are you – a _Muggleborn?"_

He said it the way one might have asked if she were a billionaire, with a combination of shocked awe and suspicion. Hermione stiffened.

"Um, yes," she said carefully.

Ron leaned towards her slightly. "What was that like?" he asked in a hushed voice. "Having a gift and not knowing anything about it?"

She could sense no overt hostility in his tone, merely the sort of slightly offensive curiosity with which people sometimes asked her why her name was Hermione Granger when she was clearly not white. Hermione forced a smile.

"Well, it was difficult, obviously, but nothing too bad," she said evasively.

Harry came to the rescue. He was eyeing Ron with a touch of displeasure in his expression. "It isn't only Muggleborns who grow up not knowing about Hogwarts, you know," he said. "I'm a half-blood, and I didn't know anything about it until Professor Hagrid appeared on my doorstep three months ago."

"No!" Ron breathed. "How come?"

Harry shrugged loosely. "I live with my aunt and uncle, and they're Muggles," he said. "Hagrid tells me my father was a pureblood and my mother was Muggleborn. They died in Russia on a mission that went wrong when I was a baby."

He said the words without a trace of emotion, but Hermione still felt embarrassed. Ron's ears flushed a dull red.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"It's alright, _you_ didn't kill them," Harry said with dark humour.

The atmosphere in the compartment dipped towards awkwardness. Hermione cast about desperately for some new topic of conversation. This was the longest interaction she'd had with her peers for a very long time, and she was not going to let it peter out without a fight.

"So, what gifts does everyone have?" she blurted out.

It was the right thing to say. Mortification forgotten, Ron turned to her with eyes gleaming excitedly.

"You first, Hermione," he said. "My brother Percy – he's the family swot – says Muggleborns tend to have really cool gifts, though nobody's quite sure why."

"Well, I don't know about cool," she said doubtfully. "Essentially, I absorb information without reading it. I can put my hand on a book and it sort of… transmits itself to my brain."

"That must've been so useful for GCSEs," Harry said enviously. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in giving us a demonstration?"

She shook her head. "No, I'd love to."

He grinned broadly. "Excellent!" Leaning down, he fished out a book from the backpack on the floor by his feet. Hermione's eyebrows rose when she saw the cover but she took it anyway.

"_Fifty Shades of Grey_?" Ron said, examining it. "What's that?"

"Just a Muggle book," Harry said vaguely. "You're a pureblood, aren't you? You won't have heard of it."

Hermione frowned. "Why wouldn't he have? He lives in the real world, same as the rest of us. Surely people with – magic – still keep up with Muggle news, and things?"

"Not really," Ron said. "To be honest, gifted people, especially purebloods, don't tend to have very many interactions with Muggles, they keep their involvement in Muggle affairs to the absolute bare minimum… there are even some purebloods who take it as a point of pride that they've never had to speak to a Muggle. Not my family, though," he added hastily.

"But MI6 is a Muggle institution," Hermione pressed. "And that's who Hogwarts is run by. It's impossible to live cut off from the real world!"

"It's hard to explain," Ron said uncomfortably. "A lot of magical people just don't like Muggles very much… they'll work with MI6, but they don't work _for_ MI6. You get me?"

Her lips pursed, but even she could see that he disliked this line of interrogation. She didn't want to risk scaring off a potential new friend so soon. She turned her attention back to the book in her hands, and looked at Harry with renewed interest.

"An odd choice of reading material for a sixteen-year-old boy, I'd have thought," she commented.

"I like romance novels," he said offhandedly. "You haven't read this one, have you?"

"No, I don't like fiction," she explained. "But I've heard of it, of course. You'd have had to be blind and deaf _not_ to."

Ron, apparently unconscious of the barb directed at him, pulled out a curiously shaped object from his pocket. When he unwrapped it, it turned out to be a frog made of chocolate.

"Well, so you haven't read it," Harry said. "But can you give me any quotes from it?"

She nodded. "Let me see… _Never trust a man who can dance_. And _you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince_."

"So how did that work?" Harry asked. "It all just went into your head?"

"Essentially, I now know the book as well as someone who's read it once a few days ago would," she explained. "I don't have a photographic memory; I can't recite it to you word by word. But I remember certain bits, just like you do, and I can regurgitate them in the form of quotations."

"Wow," Ron said through a mouthful of chocolate.

"How about you?" she asked Harry. "What's your gift?"

"I can turn invisible, but don't get too excited," he said wryly. "It isn't the most useful. Watch." Before her stunned gaze, his pale skin whitened further until it ultimately faded into nothingness, the seat visible behind him. But –

Ron let out a bark of laughter. "Your clothes are still there!"

His Hogwarts uniform was still very much present, though nobody appeared to actually be inside it. Even his glasses were still physically there. They bobbed around as his invisible head moved.

"You'd have to be naked if you wanted to be truly invisible," Hermione realised, biting her lip to hold in a chuckle of her own.

"Yeah. You see the issue?" Harry diffused back into view, looking disgruntled, though his lips ticked up in amusement. "_I_ can turn invisible, but not the things I'm touching. I'd have to strip off totally if I wanted to be properly unseen. Plus, since I'm pretty much blind without my glasses, I'd couldn't go without them either. I'm terrified of contacts, don't even suggest those," he tacked on as he saw Hermione open her mouth.

She gave up and laughed. "I have to admit, that's a pretty funny hole in your gift!"

"Enough about me," he said severely, but he was smiling too. "Let's move on. How about you, Ron? What can you do?"

Ron abruptly looked moody. The humour drained out of his face and his dark lashes lowered to shade his eyes.

"It's a pretty shit gift," he said. "Even worse than either of yours."

Hermione privately thought that invisibility and knowledge absorption, whatever their limitations, were hardly to be sniffed at in that sort of way, but repressed herself with an effort. Friendship, she reminded herself.

"Well, let us be the judge of that," she said encouragingly.

Ron sighed. "Well, it's a form of psychometry. Give me anything belonging to someone, and I can tell you where they are."

"That sounds incredibly useful!" Hermione exclaimed. "No wonder MI6 wants you!"

If she had hoped her thickly laid on praise would gratify him, she was disappointed. At her words a scowl spread across his good-natured features.

"It isn't useful at all," he said. "Yeah, I can tell where someone is… to the country level. That's bloody useless, it is."

She winced. That was a pretty bad limitation. She searched for something reassuring to say and came up blank.

Her eyes met Harry's across the compartment. He grimaced at her sympathetically.

"I'm sure Hogwarts will help train you so your gift can narrow it down a bit more," Harry said bracingly. "So, every member of your family is gifted, right? Since you're a pureblood?"

Ron accepted the unsubtle change of subject. "Yeah, we are. But we aren't one of the snobby ones, even though we're in the Sacred Twenty-Eight – that's a group of the most pureblood families, by the way. I guess you could say we Weasleys are pound shop purebloods."

This blood status thing seemed to be a lot more significant than Hermione had thought it would be. A trickle of uneasiness slid through her. How rare were Muggleborns, exactly? More to the point: precisely how low down on the totem pole did they rank?

"It's probably because there are a lot of us," Ron was saying when she tuned back in. "I'm the sixth and youngest boy, and sixth child out of seven overall, which is a bit weird because purebloods don't tend to be very fertile." He launched into a detailed overview of his six siblings. Hermione listened with the fascination of an only child to the adventures of Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, and George, his elder siblings who (with the exception of the twins, who ran a London joke shop of all things) all now worked in various capacities for MI6. Ginny, the only girl, was a year younger than Ron and still at home.

"Wait," Hermione interrupted. "What do you mean, she's still at home? Shouldn't she be in school?"

Ron frowned. "School? I told you, she's too young for Hogwarts."

"No, not Hogwarts," she snapped impatiently. "School! She should be in Year 11!"

"Oh, that's a Muggle thing," Ron said, his tone blasé. "Purebloods don't actually go to school until they're ready for Hogwarts."

Hermione reeled from a combination of shock and horror. "_Purebloods don't go to school?_" she said in an airless whisper. "You mean, you haven't done any GCSEs or anything?"

"Any _what?_" he said. He glanced at Harry like he suspected she was playing a practical joke on him, but Harry looked just as astounded.

"Biology? Chemistry? French, Latin, History, Geography, Maths?" she said wildly.

Ron's expression cleared. "Oh, you're just using the Muggle names for things! Maths is Arithmancy, right? And we'll have History of Magic on our timetables. Chemistry… I'm not sure what that is, but I think Percy said something once about how that was like Potions…"

Hermione sank low into her seat. Panic was beginning to overtake her. If Ron had not even heard of GCSEs – and she could scarcely credit it – then there was no way Hogwarts would be teaching them A-levels. And without A-levels, or even some equivalent like Scottish Highers, how could she still apply to Cambridge?

No wonder McGonagall had been so evasive on the topic of which exam boards Hogwarts did.

Harry was looking at Ron with surprise. "But you do know the basics and stuff, don't you?" he said. "Decimal multiplication, and that sort of thing?"

"We're taught everything we need to know for Hogwarts at home, before we arrive," Ron said defensively. He had sensed his companions' unflattering shock, and his blue eyes snapped with challenge.

Hermione closed her eyes. Home-schooling. Purebloods believed in home-schooling. As if she hadn't received enough nasty shocks for the day.

"I'm just going to go to the loo quickly," she said, rising. She almost tripped over Harry's sprawled-out legs on the way to the door, but luckily he retracted them just in time. She shot him and Ron a tight smile. "Won't be a minute!"

She needed a moment to herself.

Hermione slid the door to their compartment closed behind her and leaned against it for a moment. As soon as she got to Hogwarts, she was going to have words with McGonagall. How on earth was she meant to submit an 'academically competitive application' without any grades to show for it?

And most of her future classmates didn't even have GCSEs! She'd be lucky if they knew how to tie their own shoelaces!

The view from the window opposite her caught her eye, and she drifted over to look at it, unwillingly entranced. A surprising number of hours had passed since the train had begun its journey. Late afternoon had fallen; the sky was a dark, bruised purple, and the streakiness of the glass informed Hermione that it had rained at some point. She'd been so focused on the boys she hadn't even looked out of the compartment window.

Hermione did actually need the toilet, so she ventured down to it before making her way back up. The interior of the train was truly beautiful in its uniform sleekness: all glossy chestnut wood, a thick burgundy carpet, and bronze door handles to the compartments, like something out of an Edwardian gentleman's study. She hesitated for a moment outside her own door. She could hear the low murmur of voices inside, and her old fear of socialising reared its head inside her.

No, she told herself firmly. She wasn't going to allow her anxieties and complexes to prey on her this time. Hogwarts was a chance for a clean slate, an opportunity to make friends who for the first time in her life would truly understand her, and she needed to seize it with both hands.

Immersed in her mental pep talk, Hermione pushed the door open and stepped inside, letting it close behind her.

Instantly she realised that she was in the wrong compartment. Inside its narrow confines were four teenagers who had been talking and laughing, but as one they fell silent and looked up at her entrance.

There were three boys and one girl. The girl was pretty but hard-faced, her features a collection of sharp angles only somewhat softened by a bob of light brown hair; she sat straight up, her back not touching the seat, as though she had a board attached to it. Hermione had never seen such perfect posture in her life.

In contrast, the boy next to her was leaned back so languidly he appeared almost to have melted into the padded bench. He was very pale, complexion a perfect porcelain which eighteenth-century girls would have committed murder for, with icy grey eyes and short white-blond hair. The boy was undoubtedly handsome but haughtily so, as though a painting of a Georgian aristocrat had come to life before Hermione's eyes.

The two boys spread out opposite him could not have been more different from either him, or each other. The first one had dark hair so long it touched his shoulders. His eyes were palest blue, like a husky. The other one was (apart from Hermione, of course) the only person of colour in the room: he was black, with cheekbones high and sharp enough to cut glass, heavy-lidded brown eyes disdainful. All four were in Hogwarts uniform, but he had added a pair of black leather gloves.

All of them were staring at Hermione as though she had just committed some unforgivable solecism before them – which she supposed, in a way, she had.

"I'm so sorry," she said briefly. "Mixed up your compartment with mine. My apologies."

She tried to back away, but to her shock the blond boy suddenly straightened. A moment ago, he had seemed well on his way to liquefying into the padding: now he was sitting up, assessing her coolly with eyes whose shade of grey was uncomfortably piercing.

"No, don't go," he said. His voice was a clipped, intensely posh drawl of the type Hermione had heard only once before, on her visit to Eton to see a paternal cousin. "We don't mind. Why don't you sit and stay with us for a while?"

"Um," Hermione said warily. Actually being invited to inflict her presence upon someone was a novel experience for her. Nor had she missed the incredulous glance the brunette girl had flicked at the blond boy at his words, or how the black boy had opened his sleepy eyes wide in something almost like startlement. "Thank you, but I won't impose any longer. I'll just get back to my own compartment…"

"I insist," the blond boy said. He smiled at her. The smile was white, shark-like, and not as reassuring as he probably intended it to be.

Hermione hovered. She was not possessed of those mysterious 'people instincts' by which some people seemed able to tell that they were about to go out with a serial killer, or that type of thing, but the hungry way the boy ran his eyes down her body made the hairs on her arm stand up in warning. She tried out a polite smile.

"I'm flattered, but my companions will be wondering where I am, so if you don't mind –"

She lunged for the door handle and twisted it.

"Nott," the blond said lazily.

The boy nearest to her, the one with blue eyes, rose and pressed his hand flat against the door, preventing her from opening it. Hermione pushed down the unreasonable and unhelpful bolt of panic. For God's sake, they were on their way to school; what on earth could they possibly do to her? They weren't going to hurt her. She just needed to keep calm and view this as what it was: another chance to befriend some more gifted teenagers like her.

She strove to keep her voice even when she spoke. "I have to say, this all seems a little unnecessary."

"Do sit down," the blond boy said. "I promise we don't bite." He flashed her another grin that was all teeth.

"There's nowhere to sit down," Hermione pointed out. Before he had stood up, the Nott person and the black boy had been taking up every available inch on their bench, while the girl had moved her legs up until her feet nearly touched the blond's lap, cutting out the space on their side of the compartment as well.

"There is now," he said. He shifted minutely to the side. Hermione stared in disbelief at the inch or two of emptiness between him and the wall. If she tried squeezing into there, she'd end up practically on his lap!

"No, there really isn't," she said. She gave the door an experimental tug. Nott was far stronger than his thin body had led her to believe; it stayed shut fast.

The other girl spoke for the first time. "God, just sit down already," she snapped. "What is wrong with you? Are you some kind of leper?"

Though her words were directed at Hermione, her glare was directed at the blond, who was still smiling serenely at Hermione. Hermione made an executive decision and stepped away from the door.

"Fine," she said abruptly. "I'll sit down." These people – well, the boy specifically – clearly wanted something from her, probably cheap entertainment, and the quicker she provided it the quicker she could escape. She wondered whether Ron and Harry had noticed her prolonged absence. She wondered whether they would care if they had.

"Excellent," the boy said. He watched her with only the barest suggestion of triumph in his eyes as she edged closer to him, like a skittish mare approaching its first rider. Gingerly she settled herself on the very edge of the seat. She had been right about being in his lap; her thigh and side were pressed right up against his, almost on his. Thank God the uniform mandated trousers rather than skirts.

"So, what's your name?" he said. His face was turned to hers, so close that she could feel his breath washing over her face. She could not remember the last time she had been so close to someone else.

Well, barring the Underground at rush hour, of course.

"I'm Hermione," she said.

There was an expectant pause.

"Hermione_ what?_" the brunette girl said slowly, as though speaking to someone intellectually challenged.

Hermione frowned. She had never had to use her surname to introduce herself to someone her age before, though now that she thought about it, she remembered that Ron had done the same thing.

"Granger," she added.

The boy's eyes narrowed. "I've never heard of a Granger," he said. He looked at the others. "Have you, Nott? Zabini, Pansy?"

They all shook their heads. Through the process of deduction, Hermione managed to match names to faces. The girl, of course, was Pansy, which meant that the black boy was Zabini, since she already knew the other boy was Nott. All three of them had odd expressions on their faces. She looked up at the still-anonymous blond boy, who had the same look, and abruptly succeeded in identifying it: they looked like cats who had happened across a lone and injured mouse.

Her hands curled into fists in her lap. Was she the mouse in this scenario? But… well, what was even happening?

"She could be a half-blood," Zabini said, speaking for the first time. "Whatever her surname. Don't forget the Potters were pureblood, even though they weren't Sacred Twenty-Eight." His voice was utterly devoid of interest; he spoke languorously, as though each word were almost too much effort to vocalise, and certainly not worth the time it took to do so. With a jolt, Hermione realised that they were discussing her blood status. She was beginning to suspect that it mattered a lot more than McGonagall had implied at their meeting.

"That's true," the blond said, suddenly enlivened. "What's your mother's name, _Hermione?"_

She blinked. The compartment was getting dark as evening fell, and nothing seemed as bright in the gloom as his eyes, sparking like starry pinpricks in a pale face haloed with gold. She tried to avoid answering, but the words escaped her mouth almost without her permission.

"Anisha Agrawal," she said.

He made a frustrated sound. "I don't know the Indian pureblood families well enough to do anything with that information, frankly," he said to the other three. "I don't suppose any of you do?"

"Don't look at me," Zabini said indolently. "I've told you before, Malfoy, my father was _Italian,_ not Indian. I assure you there is a difference."

"If there is, I doubt it's one your mother has discovered," Malfoy sneered back. Zabini made a vulgar gesture in his direction.

"I don't think it's a pureblood name at all," Pansy said, eyeing Hermione. "Why don't you just ask her, Draco?"

_Draco Malfoy_. A full name to the face now, and what an odd name it was. Not that Hermione Jinaat Granger had any room to talk.

Malfoy tapped her chin with long, slender fingers. "Are you a half-blood, Hermione Granger?"

She jerked away from his cool touch. "No, I'm not a half-blood," she said waspishly. "I'm a Muggleborn."

The reaction in the compartment was instant. Pansy looked jubilant; Nott winced; and Zabini's eyelids dropped in a long blink that Hermione suspected was as close as he ever got to a reaction. Malfoy however merely looked thoughtful.

"Father did say there were a couple of Mudbloods this year," he said, addressing the others.

"Well, there shouldn't be!" Pansy hissed. Her hazel eyes burned feverishly. "I thought your father had spoken to Fudge about that, Draco?"

"He told me he had. I suspect Fudge is getting a little too rebellious these days," Draco said. He looked down at Hermione, an expression of mock regret painted on his features. "It's nothing personal, Granger. I'm afraid I'm just going to have to do everything in my power to see you expelled. And I assure you, my power is considerable."

"What?" Hermione said blankly. And then, leaping to her feet, away from his body: "_What?_"

"Are you deaf, Mudblood?" Pansy snarled.

Hermione's head was spinning. How had things escalated this quickly? One minute, she'd been having a relatively normal, if undeniably strange, conversation with her fellow classmates; the next they were casting unfamiliar but clearly uncomplimentary slurs at her whilst threatening expulsion.

"You can't do that at all," she said, torn between disbelief and amusement. "Who do you think you are? God?"

"Better than that. I'm Draco _Malfoy,"_ he said, smirking up at her.

At a school like hers, Hermione had met her fair share of arrogant people – some might even say she was one of them – but the supreme confidence with which he spoke was inconceivable. She stared at him.

"Look, I have no idea what a Malfoy is –"

"That's because you're an ignorant Mudblood," Pansy cut in nastily.

"You don't need to know what I am," Draco said tolerantly. "You just need to know that getting on my bad side is really not a very good idea, Granger. Why don't I make you a deal?" He held out one pale hand. "Leave Hogwarts right now, and I promise not to ruin you. How's that sound?"

"Like something I'm not going to be doing," Hermione said flatly.

The hand dropped back to his side. Suddenly, he looked far more dangerous than he had before, like an elegant white tiger. Anger flared in his eyes.

"You're going to regret that, Granger," he said softly. "When I'm done with you, you'll be begging me for mercy. But you know what?"

He reached out, quick as a striking snake, and grabbed Hermione by the blazer. She gasped as he dragged her to fall heavily across his lap. Her hands shot forward automatically to catch herself and landed on his thighs. Her face was pressed intimately against the smooth black wool of the jumper covering his chest; she could feel its regular rise and fall as he breathed.

Pansy made a low noise, like an angry cat, but said nothing. Nott and Zabini inspected them as though watching a not-particularly-interesting television programme.

"What?" Hermione managed to choke out.

"I don't have any mercy, Hermione Granger," he breathed into her ear.

She fought furiously to disentangle herself. He held onto her easily for a few moments longer, as though to show her how much stronger than her he was, then let go of her waist with a negligent shrug.

Hermione drew herself up to her full height of five feet and five inches. "Neither do I, Draco Malfoy," she snapped.

He laughed. "That, my love, was a lie."

Ignoring him, she dove for the compartment door and finally – blessedly – escaped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think Draco's gift is??
> 
> Two things I forgot to mention: in Britain some schools are so private that they're actually called public schools, e.g. Eton and Harrow. Westminster is one of them.
> 
> Jinaat is a Southeast Asian name (actually belonging to my aunt) which I've conferred upon Hermione to emphasise her heritage.


	3. The Liar's Loss

**"You **were gone for a while," Harry said, glancing up as Hermione raced back into their compartment. He and Ron appeared to have been playing some sort of card game; a five of hearts was held loosely in his splayed fingers, and the rest of the deck was fanned out on the empty seat beside him. "Is…um… everything alright?"

He looked uncomfortable. Amusement tempered Hermione's irritated anxiety.

"Yes, yes, everything alright," she said, dropping back next to Ron.

They whiled away the hours that remained in countless games of whist. As night fell and the train slowed, Hermione realised that her entire body was suffused with glowing warmth. Who cared if a random boy had promised, for nebulous reasons, to run her out of school? For the first time in her life, she had people like her. Harry and Ron spoke with her easily, included her in their musings, even laughed at her occasional jokes.

She was not going to give that up without a fight.

* * *

Dragging her suitcase behind her, Hermione followed the boys down a dark, winding driveway. True night had fallen. It was almost ten and the inky sky gleamed faintly with countless distant stars, a sight she had never bothered to look up and admire in London. But here – remote and cold – it was beautiful.

They were making their way along a gravel path which led to an immense castle. It rose up in front of them like some great hunched beast, crowned by the jagged spikes of four central towers whose outlines were stark against the sky. She had to tip her head back until her neck ached in order to take in their full height.

All around them were the rest of the students from the train. There were not many students, perhaps a hundred, and Hermione wondered incredulously whether they would be the only inhabitants of the castle. They spoke to each other in subdued murmurs, cowed by the reality of the Highlands.

There wasn't even any signal. Hermione had tried to message her parents as directed, telling them she'd arrived at Hogwarts, but its one flickering bar meant that neither WhatsApp nor mobile data were working. She hoped uneasily that they were not beginning to worry. Surely, Hogwarts would have Wi-Fi, so she'd contact them then.

Draco Malfoy and his little gang were a few feet ahead of her. Though he was only of average height for a boy, being perhaps five-nine or five-ten, he did not blend into the crowd; possibly it was his walk which kept catching her eye, a graceful lope that effortlessly ate up the distance, or the way his light hair gleamed in the dark.

At that moment his head whipped around as though he had felt her gaze on him. Hermione hurriedly focused on Ron's back.

"I hope we're all in the same house," he was saying in a muted voice. "I'm going to be in Gryffindor, of course… Weasleys always get gifts that put us in Gryffindor."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked. She sped up her pace to shoulder her way in between the two boys. "Aren't the houses randomly assigned?" They had been at her old school, as they were in almost every British secondary school.

"No, these houses actually say something about you. There are four here at Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin," Ron explained. "Broadly, we're Sorted according to whether we have physical gifts, mental gifts, defensive gifts, or offensive gifts." He ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke. "But it isn't a hard-and-fast rule. Let's take Harry's invisibility - the professor who does the Sorting might decide he should be in Gryffindor, because it's a physical gift relating to his body, or he might go for Hufflepuff, because it would be a great form of defence. You get me?"

Hermione nodded. "I must be in Ravenclaw," she said.

"Most probably, but there's always the chance that Snape will pick a different one," Ron agreed. "He's the one who Sorts, and my brothers say he's a moody one."

At that moment, they arrived at the foot of the marble staircase which led up to the great wooden double doors of the castle. All conversation ceased. The doors had been thrown open, and golden light blazed forth from the depths within.

"Students!"

A commanding, eminently familiar voice rang forth. The cohort paused in one great huddle on the bottom step.

Professor McGonagall stepped lightly out of the castle and onto the top stair. She was in her tartan skirt once more, paired with a black blazer. Her emerald-green eyes swept over the assembled teenagers and passed without recognition over Hermione.

How convenient. Just the person Hermione wanted to see.

"You will come up the stairs, one by one, as I read your name," McGonagall announced. She had the gift of projecting her voice until it flowed over them in an imperious wave; she was evidently not one of those teachers who had issues subduing difficult students. "You will then be Sorted into one of four houses. Your housemates are the people with whom you will eat, sleep, and attend classes, so I suggest you develop a rapport with them swiftly. Abbott, Hannah!"

A plump, anxious-looking brunette girl hurried up the stairs towards McGonagall. At the top she froze and looked back over her shoulder, as though rethinking her presence there, but the professor gestured her inside impatiently before moving on.

Granger, Hermione was the first out of her newfound friends to be summoned, though it was not in fact in alphabetical order – Parkinson, Pansy was called before her. Harry brushed his fingers comfortingly over her hand when she was called.

"Good luck," Ron muttered.

Moving slowly, almost as though in a daze, Hermione drifted into the castle which would be her home for the next two years. McGonagall gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement as she passed. Hermione was momentarily tempted to demand answers from her regarding A-levels, but even she recognised that now was not the time. It would have to wait.

She entered immediately into a small chamber, freezing cold and lit by the sharp, unforgiving glare of electric lights embedded improbably into the stone ceiling. At the far end was a closed door. Seeing no other option, Hermione went over and knocked.

"Enter," a voice said quietly on the other side.

She walked into an immense hall. It was easily five times the size of the antechamber outside, the ceiling so high that its furthest reaches were lost to darkness, with four long, white-clothed tables spread out before a smaller table elevated on a dais. All the tables had plates and cutlery set out on them, but no occupants. The room was illuminated by both electricity and thin wax candles dotted along each table.

There was a man standing directly beside the door, which was the only reason Hermione had managed to hear him. He was very tall and very thin, clothed in a formless black suit; his pale skin was tinged unhealthily with grey and his eyes were so dark the pupils were indistinguishable from iris. Black hair that shimmered slightly with grease under the lights swung around his chin.

"Hermione Granger," he said tonelessly. His voice was so low she had almost to strain every nerve to hear him, yet it had an odd magnetic quality that impelled the listener to hold their breath with anticipation of his next word.

"Yes, sir," she said, though it had not been a question.

He began to pace a slow circle around her. "I see the mind," he said. He seemed to be speaking to himself: his eyes were slightly unfocused. "You take in knowledge as easily as others take in air… One might say Ravenclaw. In the right hands, your mind is a weapon, but Salazar does not call to me. He does not wish to take you. Nor does Helga – she sees no defensive value in you. Godric makes bold statements, but even he cannot claim that you affect the body…"

He opened his eyes, which had slid shut at some point during his recitation. Hermione watched him, hardly daring to breathe. Who were the people he was referencing? Was he communing with them somehow? What on earth was his gift? Mind-reading seemed a fair guess, but somehow it did not quite feel right to her.

"Rowena will have you," the man said. He looked at her, gaze abruptly piercing. Wherever he had gone, he was very much back from it now. "Hermione Granger, you will be in Ravenclaw House. Your home will be Ravenclaw Tower, and Rowena will be your mistress. I am Professor Snape – I shall be attempting to instil some measure of Potions knowledge in you, though I make no promises as to my success." He paused. "Dismissed."

Resisting the ridiculous impulse to curtsy, Hermione muttered a quick "Yessir" and slipped rapidly away from him, to the other side of the hall, where another pair of double doors stood slightly ajar. She pushed them open and entered the castle proper.

There was a slight chill in the air, but she encountered a long corridor which was brightly lit and populated by four students with shield-shaped prefect badges gleaming on their chests. Two were male and two female. While they were all in Hogwarts uniform, their ties were striped different colours: the two boys had yellow-and-black and green-and-silver, while one girl had blue-and-bronze and the other, red-and-gold. House colours, Hermione realised. She smiled politely at the one closest to her.

"Hello, I'm Hermione," she said. "I'm in Ravenclaw."

The girl in the red-and-gold tie smiled back. She was short but well-muscled, with a shoulder-length mop of dark brown hair.

"I'm Katie Bell, I'm afraid I'm in Gryffindor," she said. "You want Edgecombe. Hey, Edgecombe!"

The remaining girl turned to them. Her face was almost entirely obscured by masses of long reddish-blonde hair, but through them Hermione could discern cheeks splattered with vicious acne. "Yes?" she said curtly.

"One for you," Katie said cheerfully.

Edgecombe gestured vaguely down the corridor. "Down there, first left, climb the stairs," she said. "Ravenclaw Tower. You can't miss it."

Hermione nodded and did as she had directed. Edgecombe had seemed remarkably abrupt; she hoped that the rest of her fellow Ravenclaws would be more like Katie. It was hardly an auspicious start.

The passage hooked left and Hermione progressed along it, beginning to climb a spiralling staircase which twisted on itself in a tight circle. She grunted with effort as her suitcase juddered along behind her. Where were all the other students? Bed, perhaps. It was well past ten o'clock, and no doubt there was a curfew. Still, the dead silence was somewhat eerie, and the air of the tower smelt vaguely stale. She was relieved to reach the top.

The only thing she found there was a great door painted midnight blue. It had a bronze doorknocker carved in the shape of a snarling eagle; when pressure applied to open the door produced no effect, Hermione shrugged and knocked it.

The eagle blinked living, human eyes at her, a dark stormy blue, and Hermione jerked back with a strangled shriek, only narrowly avoiding falling backwards down the stairs. It opened its beak.

"Name?" it asked. Its voice was feminine and musical.

"Hermione Granger," she said cautiously. Was she really speaking to a _doorknocker?_

The eagle closed its eyes. When it opened them again they had reverted to blank metallic circles, but the door opened with a click and swung open slowly.

Her palms were slippery with sweat. Taking a deep breath, Hermione pushed into Ravenclaw Tower.

It was not as momentous an occasion as she had privately expected. The circular common room was dark, lit only by a few lamps spread around the room, and mostly empty; a few students – clad in either pyjamas or street clothes – were lounging on the handful of sofas, but her entrance attracted little attention. She was thankful to hurry over to a further staircase with an arrow that said GIRLS pointing up it.

Her arms were aching badly from the suitcase. Staving off her growing tiredness, Hermione climbed until she reached a closed door indicating it belonged to the Lower Sixth girls' dorm. The low hum of conversation was audible from inside. For a moment she considered knocking – but no. Start as you mean to go on. She didn't need to ask permission to enter her own dormitory.

Despite the lateness of the hour, the room inside was still bright. It was small and surprisingly cosy: there were five four-poster beds spread out in a circle around the room, with trunks at their foots. Three were already occupied. She stopped short as the girls perching on them, who had been talking to each other, fell silent and turned to look at her.

The first girl had chestnut skin several shades darker than Hermione's; her long, silky black hair fell down her back in a thick plait, and her almond-shaped eyes were a strikingly light shade of brown. She was regarding Hermione with open friendliness. On the bed beside her was a tiny waif of a girl with grey eyes that seemed huge in her heart-shaped face, topped with long black curls. She seemed oddly ethereal, and one of her pupils was far bigger than the other, almost swallowing the iris in a sea of darkness. The last girl had chin-length blonde hair and incongruously scarlet brows.

Hermione swallowed and prepared herself. "Hello," she said. Her voice came out scratchy, and she had to clear her throat. "I'm Hermione. It's nice to meet you all."

The blonde examined her. Her dark blue eyes were wary, but not unfriendly. "I'm Mandy Brocklehurst," she said.

"And I'm Padma Patil," the brown girl said, smiling.

Hermione's eyes widened. "Are you Indian?" She heard the surprised note in her own voice and winced. That had come out wrong. "I mean, I'm Indian too! At least, my mum is…"

Fortunately, after a slight hesitation, Padma laughed. "Well, I was born in Essex, but yes, I'm ethnically Indian. What was your surname again, Hermione? I'm afraid I didn't catch it."

"That's because she didn't say it," the last girl said. She regarded Hermione unblinkingly. The dilation of her pupil gave her the eerie appearance of heterochromia. "I'm Lisa Turpin."

Hermione sighed internally. "Granger," she said. "And before you ask, my mother was an Agrawal."

Mandy's nose wrinkled. "Oh, you're one of those, aren't you? A Muggleborn."

She forced a smile. "Yes, so I've been told. Multiple times. I'm assuming none of you are?"

"Pureblood here," Mandy said laconically.

"My grandmother was a Muggleborn," Padma offered. "But I'm a half-blood, of course. Won't you come and sit down?"

Hermione realised that she had been standing awkwardly in front of the three sitting girls, as though she were a prisoner on trial in the dock, and was irritated with herself. As if she needed their permission. Nodding at Padma, she wheeled her suitcase over to the empty bed which had her trunk at its foot and sat down. She was next to Lisa, who immediately swivelled on the mattress to keep her in sight.

"Is it true that Mudbloods have really cool gifts?"

Mandy gasped.

"_Lisa!" _Padma hissed. "Can you not?"

Lisa was smirking, and judging from the reactions, Hermione was realising that the unusual 'Mudblood' term Draco and his friends had used on her was somewhat more offensive than their casualness had made it seem – akin to a racial epithet in her world, rather than a generic insult. She wondered how offended she ought to be. It was difficult to judge; the word itself meant nothing at all to her, so it was hard to drum up the same horror it clearly inspired in the other two girls.

"Sorry, it just slipped out," Lisa said unrepentantly.

"We aren't bloody Slytherins, we don't use that sort of language," Padma snapped.

Hermione drew herself into a cross-legged position on top of the covers. She was tired, but she had no intention of forgoing conversation with her new dormmates for sleep. "What's wrong with Slytherins?"

"Everything," Mandy said with a shudder. "They have a really, really bad rep – honestly, I don't even know why Hogwarts still keeps the house up, when being Sorted into Slytherin pretty much means you can't be trusted."

"But what do they actually do?" Hermione pressed.

"They're _dangerous_," Lisa said dreamily. She twined one corkscrew curl around her skinny fingers. "Half the time they end up bad, like back in the sixties, it turned out a whole bunch of them were being spies for that American terrorist with the funny French name. They _totally _sold out the country, and we came really close to being invaded." She sounded, bizarrely, more entranced than disgusted.

"A lot of them do turn out to be untrustworthy," Padma acknowledged. "But the rest of the time, they're just self-centred and lazy. There are so many Slytherins who don't even work for MI6, you know that? Like, they take the training, and then they just go off and use their powers for their own personal gain, like the Malfoys and the Lestranges. They're the house of offensive powers and the government really needs their skills, so it's extra bad that they don't help the rest of us out. Did you see the Slytherin prefect downstairs, in the green tie? That's Miles Bletchley, and he's going to work at his dad's law firm when he graduates!" Her tone was filled with indignation.

Hermione's mouth twisted. It was hardly as though _she _wanted to work for MI6 either… she was happy to take the training, but medicine was still her endgame. Not playing at being James Bond.

One of the names Padma had mentioned made her ears prick up. "The Malfoys?" she asked, striving to be casual. "They end up in Slytherin?"

"Every last one of them," Padma confirmed. "They're like… the purest of the purebloods, one of the oldest and richest families in the Sacred Twenty-Eight. They get _crazy _gifts."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Like what?" Every nerve in her body was straining towards Padma's answer, but she determinedly maintained her outward composure. It wouldn't do for anyone to wonder at her unusual interest in the Malfoy family.

Especially not when Draco seemed to be right: in these circles, at least, his name really did carry more weight than God's.

"Well, Lucius Malfoy – he's the head of the family – his gift is that he can sense the weaknesses in other people's gifts," Mandy said. "His sister-in-law, Bellatrix Lestrange, is gifted with the power to drive people mad." Her voice was high with a combination of awe and fear.

"But they've never once gone near MI6, even though their gifts would be so useful," Padma said disapprovingly.

Lisa unexpectedly re-entered the conversation. "Draco Malfoy's in our year," she commented, throwing herself down to lie on her bed. "I saw him on the train."

Padma nodded. "My twin sister – Parvati, she's at Hogwarts too – says she's heard rumours that his gift is absolutely vicious…"

Hermione was listening to the conversation with a slow sense of dawning horror. Gifts of madness? Viciousness? Sensing others' weaknesses? She had clearly made a terrible enemy in Draco Malfoy, and she had not even _done_ anything to him. He was merely an arrogant, entitled racist, determined to punish her for the blood status she had been born into.

She had dismissed his threats on the train as exaggerations and lies. What teenaged student could get her expelled from a school? But the respect with which her dormmates breathed his family name told a different story, and it was evident that he had the ability to make life very difficult for her indeed.

She had no intention of losing Hogwarts. Much as it irked her pride to do so, she would do best to lie low, with Ron and Harry, rather than painting herself as a target. Doubtless Draco would forget about her after a few days if she just kept her head down.

It was time to get ready for bed. Unzipping her trunk, Hermione pulled out her flannel pyjamas and toiletries bag. A door in one wall led into a communal bathroom with shower cubicles. She changed rapidly, brushed her teeth, and emerged to find that the rest of the girls were beginning to get ready as well, Padma unlacing the strands of her plait and brushing them out into a shining ebony sheet. Hermione watched in envy. Her own hair was a shade of very dark brown which developed reddish highlights in the sun, but it was so thick and heavy that it snarled frequently and had to be tightly corralled with braids.

She pulled back the covers of her bed and stopped short. A folded piece of paper with her name on it was lying nestled under the blanket, with a blue-and-bronze tie beside it.

_Hermione Jinaat Granger – Timetable_

She scanned it with growing rage. The five subjects listed on it were Transfiguration, Potions, Divination, History of Magic, and something called 'Personal Development' with a Professor F. Flitwick; nothing on it at all resembled A-level subjects.

She had most certainly been had. What university would take her with 'History of Magic' listed on her UCAS application?

Padma had vanished into the bathroom, so Hermione addressed her next question to Mandy, who was busy rolling her socks off. Lisa had already disappeared behind the curtain enclosing her four-poster bed.

"If we all have unique gifts, how is it that we can share so many of the same lessons?"

Mandy shrugged. "Well, for one, we don't _all _have unique gifts. Sometimes you do come across two people with the same ability. For another, these subjects are all suitable for anyone who has even a dollop of magic, whatever their specific gift – they're broadly designed to help us excel on missions from a gifted perspective."

She said the word 'missions' with a measure of self-consciousness, as though even she were aware of how ridiculous it sounded, and Hermione felt her lips quirk into a smile.

"Thank you," she said. Mandy nodded and shut her curtains.

Hermione did the same. Her phone battery was painfully low, and she hadn't unpacked her charger, but she set an alarm for seven the next morning and hoped her phone would last until then. She really needed to check the castle's Wi-Fi connection too, so she could contact her parents. Hopefully, they weren't too frantic right now.

As she slid into sleep, she mused that, despite her fraught encounter with Draco and his lackeys on the train, the day had not been a negative one: she had managed to acquire two new acquaintances who would hopefully develop into true friends.

Moreover, she conveniently had Transfiguration with McGonagall first thing tomorrow morning. She would not have long to wait to confront her.

* * *

The next morning, Hermione sat nursing a cup of tea at table in the hall, feeling unusually flushed with energy.

Her phone had awoken her at the appointed time, but it was on its last legs, and she had left it upstairs charging in her room. To her uneasiness, she had not been able to discover a Wi-Fi network covering the castle; her phone stubbornly insisted that it was unable to find one, but there was no way that a school lacked coverage. Yet another thing to question McGonagall over.

She was sitting next to Padma and the rest of the girls. It was eight, and her first lesson started at nine. Suddenly living in a boarding school with no commute time meant she had been able to sleep for far longer than she did at home, and she was feeling refreshed. The food at Hogwarts was also excellent. She had come down several minutes ago to find that all four tables – which, it transpired, were for each of the houses – were stacked with piles of buttery pancakes, crispy toast and hash browns, and jugs of sticky golden syrup. There had been no dinner last night and her stomach had rumbled just at the sight.

There were no teachers seated at the High Table, and only a handful of students in the room. Most were sleepy-eyed and yawning, shovelling food into their mouths, still dressed in their pyjamas. None of them was Ron, Harry, or for that matter Draco. Zabini was there, however; like her, he was also fully dressed, complete with the black leather gloves he had been wearing yesterday, and was forking bites of croissant into his mouth with methodical precision. A green-and-silver tie was looped around his neck.

She had had to cross the Slytherin table to reach her own Ravenclaw one. Through it all, she had felt his heavy-lidded eyes boring into her, but when she had darted a glance at him he had appeared to be fully absorbed in his meal. It set her badly on edge.

Ignore him, she reminded herself. You don't want to get mixed up with any of that lot.

Her resolve was further tested when Draco chose that moment to enter the hall. He strode in through the double doors as though he owned it, hair brushed brutally straight. The blackness of the uniform made his white skin seem almost ghostly. Unsurprisingly, he made a beeline straight for the Slytherin table, where Zabini acknowledged him with a tiny nod.

Hermione dropped her head. He had not appeared to notice her, and she wanted to keep it that way. Fortunately he had settled with his back to her.

"I'm going back up to the dorms to get my bag," she muttered to Padma once she'd finished the last of her tea. "What do you have first? Transfiguration too?"

Padma nodded. "Everyone in the same house has the same timetable, mostly. Let me come with you, I'm nearly done," she said, starting to rise, but Hermione shook her head.

"You stay. Finish your meal. I'll be right back."

She swung her legs over the bench and stood up.

She had to pass uncomfortably close to the Slytherin table to reach the exit as well, and knew that her reprieve had come to an end. As she walked past, trying to strike a balanced speed between 'obviously panicked' and 'stupidly slow', she heard a low jeering laugh. It took her a moment to identify it as Draco's.

"So you're still here," he said. He had twisted in his seat to take her in. His grey eyes glittered with feral amusement.

Hermione urged herself to keep on walking, but found herself – almost accidentally – slowing and coming to a stop. "Yes, I am," she said defiantly.

Zabini rose and wandered over to her and Draco's side of the table, his expression thoughtful.

"That's a surprise," he said. "Snape doesn't like people like you very much. Do you think he's losing his touch, Malfoy?"

Draco's lip curled. "He's my godfather, Zabini," he said, as though that answered his question.

Hermione looked between them. She had thought they were friends, or at least allies, but a vaguely hostile tension burned in the air between them.

"Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter," Zabini said negligently. "After all, you've still got all _your_ wits about you…"

Hermione never saw it coming. One moment, he had been several feet away, drifting as lazily as a pondlily; the next, he was suddenly next to her and she felt a punishing grip on her arms as he tightened his hands around them and swung her to the side. Her feet tangled over the leg he had thrown out to trip her. She crashed heavily to the floor: her head knocked into Draco's lap, the hardness of his thighs smashing into one side of her face. Pain zinged across her cheekbone.

For a moment Hermione simply lay there, stunned. She had never been physically bullied before. In fact, she had not really been bullied at all; people tended to ignore her, and she tended to like it that way. Seconds passed as she struggled to take in what had just occurred. Zabini – had just _pushed _her. He'd _assaulted _her. She wondered wildly when a teacher would intervene, and then realised that none were in the hall, nor had she seen a single teacher since Snape yesterday evening.

"Do get up, Granger," Draco drawled and she realised she was still – for the second time in two days – on his lap. He smelled oddly pleasant: some sort of cologne, spicy and smoky, which screamed expensiveness. "I've heard that your kind are desperate for pureblood lovers, but it's quite unseemly to be propositioning me in the middle of breakfast."

Flushing furiously with anger and embarrassment, Hermione surged to her feet. "Don't flatter yourself, Malfoy," she snapped. "You touch me again, and I'll – I'll –"

"Stammer at me?" he suggested cruelly.

She whirled around and ran for the exit. Her old plan of 'lying low' could go get bent. Getting revenge, against him and Zabini both, sounded like a much better option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going back to uni at the start of October, so I'm trying to write as much as possible before then!
> 
> Would appreciate kudos and comments, as always :)


	4. The Liar's Gain

"What on earth was that?" Padma breathed as the two of them hurried to Transfiguration.

"Nothing," Hermione said curtly. She lengthened her stride.

Padma kept up. "That was – Draco Malfoy! And Blaise Zabini! What did you do to them? Have you… pissed them off somehow?"

"No, they decided to throw me to the ground because we're best friends," Hermione snapped. "I didn't do a thing to them, Padma. They disapprove of my precious blood status."

She glanced to the side long enough to catch Padma's frozen expression, and the way she slowed down, allowing Hermione to race ahead in front of her. Grim amusement filled her. There went the first almost-friend Draco and Zabini had managed to scare off.

She could only hope Ron and Harry would demonstrate more perseverance. Though she had no reason to think they would, after all… she'd known them for precisely one day.

Hermione entered the Transfiguration classroom. It was large and airy, with a smattering of single desks facing a large blackboard. Hermione dropped into one at the front and took out her notebook and fountain pen.

_2/9/16 Transfiguration_

McGonagall herself wasn't there yet, but there were three boys near the back in Ravenclaw ties, presumably the male counterparts to herself and her fellow female housemates. One boy was pale, blond, and grey-eyed; her stomach tightened before she realised that his features were too blunt to be Draco's. She briefly considered striking up conversation with them, but then Padma came in, and all three of them immediately flocked to her. Hermione's fist tightened around her pen as she heard their laughs ring out from behind her back. Were they looking at her? Her spine stiffened in paranoia.

_Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you._

Mandy and Lisa wandered in as well. As the clock inched closer towards nine and no other houses entered, Hermione realised that this particular lesson would be conducted only in presence of Ravenclaws. Seven people – a nice small number for an A-level class.

Only it wasn't an A-level class. And that was the bone she'd be picking with McGonagall as soon as this lesson was over.

The moment the clock struck nine McGonagall walked in, bringing with her a sense of sharp competency which straightened backs all around the room. Her grey-shot black hair was twisted into a severe bun, and she regarded the assembled students through narrowed eyes as she strode up to the blackboard.

"Welcome to your first Transfiguration lesson of the year," she said calmly. Her eyebrows rose as she noted that Hermione alone was in the front row: the others were all squashed in towards the back, like she had leprosy. "I will be taking a roll call, first of all. Terry Boot?"

"Yes, Professor!"

One of the Ravenclaw boys, one with bright ginger hair and an open expression. Hermione was reminded irresistibly of Ron.

"Mandy Brocklehurst… Michael Corner… Anthony Goldstein…"

Michael was pale and dark-haired, with a thick Irish brogue. Anthony was the one who resembled Draco far too much for Hermione's comfort. McGonagall moved briskly past her, Padma, and Lisa, then began the lesson itself.

"Transfiguration, in its purest form, is the mutation of one object to another," she announced. "Some few _are _indeed gifted with variations of this skill, such as myself. But I will be teaching you predominantly how to use objects you find around you for different purposes from their intended ones. Today we will begin with the scintillating topic of household bombs, known informally as Molotov cocktails."

The atmosphere in the room became electric. She smiled thinly.

"Yes, this is a favourite of many students, but beware – it is exceedingly explosive and I will not tolerate any diversion from my instructions, do I make myself clear?" She did not wait for an answer. "At the back of this classroom is a closet. In it you will find the ingredients we will be using today. I am writing the steps on the board; should you deviate from them even slightly, you will be receiving detention with me. Assuming, of course, that there is anything left of you to give detention to."

Hermione wiped her palms on her trousers. Then, cautiously, she pinched herself. The bite of pain was not totally sufficient to ensure her that all of this was real, but there was nothing else she could do. Besides, if this was a dream, she wasn't sure she wanted to wake up; her skin was tingling with excitement.

The others, looking shell-shocked, made for the closet. Hermione did the same. She emerged with a number of glass beakers containing household chemicals, such as laundry detergent, which she carried to her desk. McGonagall had written the instructions on the blackboard in elegant cursive.

It was time to begin.

Hermione sweated and strained. Halfway through the lesson, a minor diversion was produced by Michael Corner accidentally igniting his mixture too early and singeing off his eyebrows; McGonagall fixed him with a look so freezing that Hermione was grateful not to be in his place. Apart from that, she was so absorbed in her work that when she finally looked up, finished, at the end of the lesson, she was surprised to see that McGonagall was standing by her shoulder and had been watching her for several minutes.

"Excellent work, Miss Granger," she said approvingly. "Ten points to Ravenclaw!"

Pleasure suffused Hermione's body. "Thank you, Professor."

She nodded. "Everyone, you are now free to go. Since it's your first lesson, you won't be receiving homework."

There was clear dismissal in her voice. Hearing the sounds of packing up and scraping chairs behind her, Hermione dawdled over her own clear-up, waiting until the room cleared before she came closer to where McGonagall was sitting at the front desk. She looked up at Hermione in clear surprise.

"Is there something I can help you with, Miss Granger?"

Hermione took a deep breath. She had never had to confront a figure of authority before, and nervousness spiked her stomach.

"As a matter of fact there is, Professor," she said haltingly. "I'd like to talk to you about –"

"Professor McGonagall? Oh – sorry to interrupt…"

She had heard that low, lazy drawl, so posh it almost hurt, only an hour ago. Her heart sinking, Hermione turned to find Draco Malfoy standing at the entrance to the classroom. His eyes lit up with dark glee when he saw her.

"Don't worry about it. What is it, Mr Malfoy?" McGonagall asked brusquely.

He wiped the amusement away, leaving only a virtuous expression that set Hermione's teeth on edge. "A message from my father, Professor," he said. "He's brought along some documents to sign, and they need your signature as Deputy Headmistress since Professor Dumbledore is still in New York. You'll find him waiting in your office. My father is on the board of governors," he added to Hermione. Though his tone was one of polite explanation, she could sense the menace underlying it.

"I'd better go do that, then," McGonagall said, shoving some papers into her briefcase. "Thank you, Mr Malfoy."

Without a further glance at Hermione, she strode off down the classroom and vanished, swinging the door shut behind her.

Hermione had half a second to realise the depth of the danger she was in. Whirling around, she tried to throw herself towards the exit, but he blocked her easily with his body. The wolfish smile he gave her made her knees weak with fear.

"Ah, little Mudblood, you're still here," he said conversationally. "How was your first lesson?"

She stumbled backwards to get away from the heat of his lean muscles. "Let me go, Malfoy," she said icily.

He laughed. "Why would I do that?" He came closer, slowly, smirking as she backpedalled – straight into a wall.

Her breath stuttered in her lungs. He was close, far too close, looming over her, his pupils dilating like a cat's. She couldn't breathe properly. There was a tight band of – what was it? Anger, she thought, and a healthy dose of fear – wrapped around her chest. She had to tilt her head back to keep him in sight.

She had never seen anyone look so ravenous; he eyed her like he was a starving wolf and she was a bleeding rabbit.

And she was alone in a classroom with him.

She had to swallow several times before her dry throat was moist enough to speak with. "Malfoy," she croaked. "Get away from me."

"No," he replied. His voice was equally soft. "I don't think I shall."

He skimmed his long, spidery fingers up her stomach. She should not have been able to feel his touch through her blouse and jumper, but she could, she did, like needlepoints dragging gently over her skin.

His hand came to rest gently over her breast.

Hermione's brain short-circuited. Nobody, _nobody _had ever touched her like this before. He wasn't hurting her – but she didn't want this. He was caressing the underside of her breast lightly, almost tenderly, but she wasn't fooled. This was just another intimidation tactic.

She was right up against the wall already. There was nowhere else to flee to.

"Stop it," she breathed.

"Say you'll leave, little Mudblood," he murmured. "Then I'll – I'll –"

She blinked in surprise as he made an odd choking sound, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly several times. His free hand flew to his throat. Was he having some sort of heart attack? Would she try and save him if he were?

There was no need to debate moral imperatives, in any case, since he turned out to perfectly fine. The hand on his throat dropped away: the one on her breast tightened almost painfully. His thumb and forefinger darted up to squeeze her nipple viciously between them. 

She gasped. But it wasn't from pain.

He gave her a mocking smile, but something about it was different, as though the mockery were directed as much towards him as it was to herself.

"No, I wouldn't stop even if you said you'd leave," he said. "But there's a chance I might stop _sooner_."

Hermione would never know how she would have responded. At that moment, the classroom door swung open, and a crowd of students in yellow-and-black ties fell in, talking and laughing.

With a muted growl, Draco released her. "Later, little Mudblood," he said. He walked off without a backwards glance, the students parting around him.

Dazed, Hermione moved to do the same, but was arrested by the sight of a familiar face. "Harry!" she cried.

He had only just entered the classroom; he looked up at the sound of his name, and his gaze fell on her immediately.

"Hermione!" he said, beaming. "I was wondering where you were!" His eyes dropped to her tie. "You're in Ravenclaw? Shocker."

"_You're _in Hufflepuff. Now that's a shocker," she returned, taking in the sight of his own tie. "I take it Snape decided your gift was more defensive than physical?"

He shrugged. "Said Helga wanted me, whatever that means, so here I am. Catch you at lunch?"

"Yes, please," she said fervently. The warm glow of friendship had driven out any lingering uneasiness over Draco's presence. He was clearly an unhinged, dangerous psychopath, but if she couldn't take him down, who could?

* * *

Lunchtime began at 12:35 pm. Exiting the library, where she had spent the last two free periods, Hermione made her way to the Great Hall. The sting from the fact that she had lost any chance of Padma's friendship was negated by Harry's continued willingness to be seen with her… even if she did wonder whether that would continue in the face of Draco's continued attempts to scare her off.

The McGonagall attempt had been a bust. It figured that Lucius Malfoy was on the board of governors; no wonder Draco walked around with the sleek arrogance of a lion in the jungle. The fastest, the strongest, the most dangerous animal in any given room. But Hermione wasn't planning to give up. She'd try and track McGonagall down again later.

Arriving at the hall, Hermione abandoned the Ravenclaw table in favour of hurrying over to where Harry was sitting with the Hufflepuffs. He grinned broadly at her approach.

"Hermione!"

A plate heaped with mashed potatoes lay in front of him, and he was being squeezed on either side by a pair of brunet boys. Hermione's stride stuttered as she came closer.

"Er – hi, Harry…"

"Budge up," he said to one of the boys, who obligingly shifted. With a nod of thanks at him she swung her legs over the bench.

"These are my housemates, Ernie and Justin," Harry introduced. "Guys, this is Hermione from Ravenclaw. I met her on the train."

She offered them both a polite smile, and was disconcerted to see that Justin was squinting at her. Her hackles rose. Was she about to see some sort of Draco-motivated attack?

To her astonishment, Justin abruptly said, "Hey, I know you from somewhere!" His vowels were clipped in the manner of BBC newsreaders.

She regarded his bland good looks. "No, I really don't think so," she said with finality. She turned to Harry. "So, I –"

"I _do,"_ he insisted. "Let me think about it for a moment, I'm not too good with faces…" He snapped his fingers. "I saw you at Eton last year!"

Hermione's head whipped around with sudden interest. "You were at Eton?" she asked.

He nodded with only a touch of self-consciousness. "I'm actually a Finch-Fletchley, you see. You were visiting your cousin or something, weren't you? Saw him showing you around…"

"But that means you're a Muggleborn too!" she exclaimed. She had heard vaguely of the Finch-Fletchleys, an upper-class English family with cloudy connections to some of the posher girls at her school. With newfound excitement she held her hand out to be shaken, almost thrumming with the discovery. She had known intellectually that she couldn't possibly be the only Muggleborn here, but actually coming face-to-face with another one was unspeakably reassuring. Even if Harry and Ron failed her as Padma had, she wouldn't be totally alone. Not when Justin would be as much Draco's target as she was.

He looked bemused, but he shook her outstretched hand. "Yes, good to meet you properly!"

"Muggleborns are so very rare," the remaining boy, Ernie, said portentously. He was on the plump side, his hair closer to blond than brown, with a snub nose that begged to be flicked. "We Macmillans are in the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but we've always been a friend of Muggleborns."

"I'm pretty much a Muggleborn myself, realistically," Harry interjected. "In terms of what I know about Hogwarts, and things. My Head of House, Professor Sprout, says my dad James was a pureblood, but my mum Lily was a Muggleborn who moved to England from Hong Kong." His voice grew wistful.

Hermione hesitated, then brushed her hand over Harry's in comfort. "We should do more to find out more about your parents," she said. "They came here, right? So there must be records of them."

He shot her a grateful smile.

At that moment, a shadow darkened their table. Hermione tensed with sudden stress, but when she looked up, it turned out to be Ron, a dazzling smile on his face.

"Harry! Hermione! Shove up a bit, would you, Ernie?"

It was clear he knew Ernie already, no doubt from their shared pureblood background; he grumbled but wriggled along the bench until there was enough space for Ron to drop down as well.

"Ah, mate, you ended up in Hufflepuff," Ron said. He himself was in Gryffindor: the scarlet-and-gold tie blazed brightly on his chest. "I figured you'd be in Ravenclaw though, Hermione." He swept a critical eye over the dishes of food in front of them. "Not as good as Mum's spreads, but it'll have to do."

As the lunch went on, Hermione began to relax. Neither Draco nor any of his friends were in the hall, her lasagne was excellent, and the conversation highly agreeable. She, Justin, and Harry all had Muggle backgrounds, and both Ron and Ernie seemed fascinated by it; surreally, she found herself explaining to them exactly how the internet worked.

"So purebloods really don't have internet?" Justin said incredulously.

Ernie nodded. "Lots of Muggle things don't work around gifted people, if there's enough of them around. And lots of other purebloods refuse to use such blatantly Muggle things when they're at home, just for the sake of it. I mean, I know in theory what the internet is, but I've never used it."

"What about on – on missions?" Hermione asked, wincing over the stupid word. "For MI6? Surely you'll need phones and things for that?"

He shrugged. "For missions? Sure, if it's really necessary. But in general purebloods prefer to stay away from Muggle technology as much as possible."

Hermione pushed away her last bite of lasagne, feeling sickened. She had underestimated the depth of hatred people like Malfoy harboured for her. And there was no way at all to contact her parents. What if they were going frantic right now, because she hadn't texted them?

Her mood got worse when Draco swaggered into the hall. He seemed to have picked up an adoring train of fans; Pansy, Nott, and Zabini followed him, as well as a pair of skulking, heavily muscled boys she had not seen before. She stared at them in disbelief. Buzzcuts and biceps which looked like they could bend iron – were they supposed to be bodyguards? All six of them had Slytherin ties.

Zabini and Nott peeled off the group to make a beeline for the Slytherin table. Draco lingered, scanning the Ravenclaw table, and Hermione felt a frisson of satisfaction when a tiny frown creased his brow at not being able to find her.

It didn't last long. Pansy had been looking in boredom around the hall, and her eyes fell on Hermione with vicious delight.

"Mudblood!" she shrieked. She skipped closer, pulling Draco along by his perfectly pressed sleeve. "There you are!"

Conversation at the Hufflepuff table died away. Hermione cringed internally, but kept her face serenely unconcerned as Draco sauntered towards them.

"Here I am," she agreed. "Miss me?"

"Ooh, you are a mouthy Mudblood," Pansy said appreciatively. "Let's see if I can shut you up…"

Hermione could never have seen it coming. Of its own volition, the glass of Coke she had poured rose up from the table and flung itself at her face.

She ducked her head, but she was nowhere near fast enough. The icy liquid splashed all over her, a brutally sharp shock to the senses. Coldness soaked into the front of her jumper and dripped between her breasts.

Well, Hermione thought, she knew what Pansy's gift was now: telekinesis. She would have thought it would be a physical gift worthy of Gryffindor, but the girl's green-and-silver tie was unmistakeable. Perhaps there was something to Padma's theory that all the worst people ended up in Slytherin.

Pansy was laughing, but all Hermione could hear was Draco's laugh, that taunting jeer she had heard far too many times today already. Rage bubbled through her. All around her, her tablemates were sitting frozen in shock, but she was burning hot.

Hermione rose to her feet in a swift jerk. Without taking her eyes off Pansy's face, twisted in amusement, she felt around on the table surface until she encountered a full glass. She lifted it.

Then stopped. For the first time, a teacher had waddled into the hall.

He was extremely short, clearly a sufferer from some manner of dwarfism, but his suit was crisply ironed and his vivid blue tie matched the stripes on hers. Draco was watching him through narrowed eyes. Was he going to look up from the newspaper he was perusing and see how the Slytherins had gathered in clear aggression around the Hufflepuff table? Would he sense the electric tension in the air?

Without once diverting his gaze from the paper, he made his way to the High Table – the only teacher Hermione had ever seen there – and settled himself on one of the high-backed chairs.

She exhaled in a combination of relief and disappointment. She wouldn't get her chance to drench Pansy now, but equally, they couldn't do anything to her now that a teacher was here.

She was mistaken. Though Pansy fled to the Slytherin table with a single malevolent glare at Hermione, Draco languidly settled himself onto the empty bench on the opposite side of the table to Hermione. The two heavily-muscled boys hovered behind him. Every so often they darted longing glances at the piles of food.

"So, little Mudblood," Draco began genially.

Ron shook off whatever stupor had been binding him and shot to his feet. "Don't call her that," he snarled.

Draco looked him up and down, expression contemptuous. "Weasley," he said. "So you did make it into Hogwarts after all. They really will let anyone in these days."

Ron's hands curled into fists. "Fuck off, Malfoy, or I'll wipe that ruddy smirk off your ruddy face, am I clear?"

Draco raised a pale eyebrow. "No, you won't. Do you know why, Weasley? Because if you lay a finger on me, I will see to it that every single member of your family loses their job instantly. And trust me, you can't afford that."

Ron's entire face had flushed bright red, like an overripe tomato. "Sit down, mate," Harry muttered tensely. He tugged Ron down by the edge of his blazer. "Don't give him what he's looking for."

Draco had been buttering a scone with every appearance of unconcern, but at the sound of Harry's voice his head whipped up, and he looked at Harry with new interest.

"And who might you be?"

Harry's lip curled. "Potter. Harry Potter."

Draco showed no reaction to the blatant borrowing of James Bond's signature introduction, and Hermione marvelled once more at the depth to which purebloods were ignorant of the Muggle world around them. How could they execute their function as Aurors for MI6 appropriately when they were missing such basic knowledge? Why, if she were in charge, she'd…

The fantasy of what she would do if she were in charge was a common and well-loved one, and it took her a moment to snap out of it and realise that Draco was staring at Harry with something very like startlement on his face. Though he covered it up a moment later, replacing it with his habitual sneer, she was sure that _something _had been there before.

But perhaps she was imagining it. She was hardly the authority on emotional reactions, after all.

With a final excoriating glance at Ron, whose gaze was fixed on the tabletop like his life depended on it, Draco turned his attention back to Hermione. She struggled to hold the soul-sucking gunmetal coldness of his eyes. Until Draco looked elsewhere, it was difficult to realise just what an effort it was to remain calm under his jagged scrutiny, and she hated eye contact at the best of times anyway.

But she wouldn't look away. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

He forked a bite of something into his mouth without breaking the connection between them. "Crabbe, Goyle, sit down," he said briefly.

The two hulking boys dropped down on either side of them and immediately began shovelling food onto their plates. Hermione's nose wrinkled.

"Goons, Malfoy? Scared Ron might catch you alone in a dark corner and you'd be toast?"

If she'd hoped to embarrass or infuriate him, she was unsuccessful; Draco merely flicked an unimpressed glance at them.

"Believe it or not, the possibility that _I _might be toast against a _Weasley _is not one which particularly concerns me," he said. "Don't worry your pretty little head over Crabbe and Goyle. They're the sons of two of my father's business associates." He smiled winningly at her.

"Business associates," Hermione echoed, watching one of them – Crabbe, or maybe Goyle – consume an entire pastry in one large mouthful.

"Yes," he agreed. Without taking his eyes off her, he added casually, "Goyle, go up and get my Arithmancy folder, would you? I left it in my dorm."

Goon Number Two, at least by alphabetical order, lumbered away.

"Yeah, those definitely aren't goons," Harry muttered.

With a jolt, Hermione realised that she had forgotten he and Ron were there. Ron was looking steadfastly at the table, knuckles white around the handle of his spoon, while Harry looked at Draco with every appearance of intense dislike. Odd. It had almost started to seem as though the two of them were the only people in the hall, but of course they weren't; it had filled up somewhat as lunchtime progressed, and was now full of a burbling chatter which obscured their conversation from general audibility. Ernie and Justin had vanished, and Hermione wondered whether Ernie had spirited the Muggleborn away before Draco could notice him.

Draco shrugged carelessly in response to Harry.

"Believe what you wish, Potter," he said. For some reason, he appeared to find that funny; he smirked to himself before dabbing his lips delicately with the napkin and standing up. Instantly, Crabbe rose as well. His expression was so vacant Hermione found it almost physically painful.

"Well, this has been quite a treat," Draco said. "Weasley, do be sure to pass on my father's compliments to all the employed members of your family, won't you? A friendly reminder that he's watching… Potter, doubtless we shall run into each other at some point soon. As for you, my little Mudblood…"

Draco leaned towards her over the table. Hermione leaned backwards, but not quickly enough. He slid his hand over the top of her head, ruffling her hair, then shot her a jaunty wink and walked off. Crabbe trailed behind him.

Hermione exhaled gustily and realised that she had not taken in a proper breath for the entire time Draco had been there. Next to her, Ron swore loudly.

"That little _ferret_," he said ferociously. "Hiding behind his daddy like usual… Threatening my dad and brothers' jobs…"

"You two seemed to know each other," Harry commented.

Ron shrugged. "We're actually related – all the pureblood families are. My dad's mum, Cedrella Black, is a distant cousin of Malfoy's mum Narcissa. But it's not a big thing. They hate us Weasleys because we've never gone in for their pureblood rubbish, and we hate them because they're bigoted cunts."

"If Draco's dad is just on the board of Hogwarts governors, how can he impact your family's jobs in the government?" Hermione asked, frowning.

Ron shook his head. "Lucius Malfoy has his finger in a hell of a lot of pies. He's richer than the devil, and he's always round at the Muggle Ministry, getting cosy with all our Aurors."

Hermione shivered. She knew, of course, that there were always unaccountable and unelected wealthy individuals who exerted horrific amounts of influence over people in position in power; she had received a recent example in the form of Arron Banks, the rabidly right-wing billionaire who had funded the Vote Leave campaign. But this was her first time coming directly face-to-face with someone like that.

Or, well, his son.

"We need to take him down," she murmured, almost to herself, but Harry's sharp ears picked it up.

"What was that?"

Hermione turned to him. "You saw what Malfoy was like, didn't you? Well, he's been on at me like that – for my blood status – since I met him on the train yesterday afternoon. He swore he'd see me run out of school."

Harry's slanted emerald eyes were stormy. "That's not on," he said. "What he said to you, or to Ron."

"I'm pretty sure that something about you set him off as well," she said. "Even if he didn't say it."

Ron sighed tiredly. "Look, Hermione, I'm not sure what you're suggesting here, but whatever it is, it's pointless. He's the son of one of the most powerful men in the country. He was right – we can't risk harming a hair on that dumb blond head of his."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I never took you for a coward, Ron."

His expression darkened. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said," she enunciated clearly, "I never took you for a coward. So what if his dad's some big politician, or whatever? We just need to work out a way of getting our own back on him without it coming to Lucius Malfoy's ears."

"Well, go on then, what's your brilliant plan?" Ron snapped.

Hermione's lips tightened. "I've not thought that part out yet," she admitted grudgingly. "But I'm on it. The question is, will you be with me?"

She held his eyes for a long moment. They were a clear, appealingly bright shade of blue, fringed not with the unfortunately ginger lashes so many redheads were cursed with, but a long dark fan which brushed his cheeks when he blinked.

And he did blink. "Fine," he grumbled, looking away. "Not as though putting it to Malfoy will be a chore."

Concealing her rush of relief, Hermione raised an eyebrow at Harry. "How about you, Harry? In or out?"

Harry toyed with a dessert spoon on his empty plate. She watched him do it, and saw that he had an odd ring on the smallest finger of his left hand. She had noticed it before in passing, but this was the first time she was seeing it up close: big and black and chunky, covered in tiny scratches. He caught her looking and curled his fingers up.

"I'm in," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, y'all! Thank you to the people who recommended my stories to dramioneasks.tumblr.com (especially Stella Purple, if you're reading this!). I look at it sometimes and it was such a nice shock to see that a couple of you had done that. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'd love any comments or kudos :)


	5. The Liar's Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE! The possible singular pro of the pandemic is that my end-of-year exams have been cancelled, so I now actually have the time to update. I also finally finished planning the plot of this story, so I also have the inspiration to update. It's going to be pretty long and hopefully, pretty good.
> 
> I hope all of you are safe and looking after yourselves, and that this story can bring a tiny bit of happines to your lives right now. If you can, I would love it if you could comment.

**Five: The Liar's Plans**

"**W**e have to go to the Library," Hermione said decisively, rising to her feet. "That always gives me ideas."

"How did I know you were going to say that?" Ron muttered. "It would take you ten seconds to get through the entire British Library, no wonder you love those places…"

She ignored the disgruntlement simmering from his direction. Why he should be so opposed to her idea, she didn't know. Hadn't Draco insulted him almost as much as he had her? Didn't Ron want his own revenge?

"We have fifteen minutes of lunch left, come _on,_ Harry," she said. After a millisecond of hesitation she reached down to tug at his sleeve.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he said, unfolding the compact length of his body from the bench. "Do you even know where the Library is?"

"No, but it's never taken me long to find one before," she said offhandedly. "Side effect of my gift, perhaps…"

They scurried to the entrance of the Great Hall. Hermione's breath stuttered for a moment as she paused there, sweeping the corridor for Draco, but of course that was stupid. She had seen him walk out of here with Crabbe several minutes ago and he would hardly have been hanging around here waiting for her. She was safe, she assured herself.

It took them five precious minutes to find the Library. Hermione drifted through the corridors with her eyes cast downwards, frowning softly; a tiny, insistent tugging in her stomach directed her steps up stairs and through passageways. Just as Ron was pointing out that he was the one with the locating gift, not her, so why were they even following her anyway, she came to a halt outside an unassuming wooden door with deep scratches gouged into the surface. They were on the very highest floor of Hogwarts castle, right beneath what she assumed to be the battlements; if she peered over the handrail, there was a dizzying drop to the floors below, where students darted like blackbirds no larger than her fingernails.

"Here," she said.

Rolling his eyes, Ron pushed past her to swing the door open. "This is going to be a store cupboard, Hermione, not –"

His voice died away. It was indubitably not a store cupboard.

The Library was huge. Tall wooden bookshelves soared up into the domed ceiling, so far away it was wreathed in shadows. Fan-shaped windows set high on the walls allowed in bursts of cold autumnal sunlight to pool on strategically placed writing desks. The hush of silence was so strong, it was nearly a physical wall: Ron's voice had stopped as though his throat had been cut.

Everywhere she looked, Hermione saw books – stacked on shelves, piled on desks, even a handful heaped up on the floor next to a girl who had abandoned any notion of moving and was lying reading on the carpet. Their jewel-toned leather covers winked at her.

_Read us – come – read us –_

With an effort, Hermione dragged her gaze away from one particularly attractive-looking tome in a nearby shelf with a spine of tooled chocolate leather. What was happening to her? She'd never been so badly affected by a library. Not even when she'd visited the British Library near Kings Cross, the University Library in Cambridge or the Bodleian in Oxford, all of them deposit libraries with almost the entire sum of human knowledge secreted away within their walls.

"What are we looking for?" Harry asked in a near-soundless whisper.

"Anything," she murmured back. "Anything which you think will help us."

He looked dubious, but nodded and vanished in between two shelves. Hermione prodded Ron after him and turned to the nearest ledge.

The classification system the Hogwarts Library used was none she knew, certainly not the Dewey Decimal. She scanned the spines as quickly as possible. Her eyes zipped past books with titles like _The Monster Book of Monsters_ and _Voyages with Vampires_, but she nobly restrained her curiosity, knowing they'd be unlikely to help. True, it would only take her a moment to absorb them, but she didn't want to get distracted right now. She had a job on her hands.

The fact that she didn't know what she was looking for infinitely complicated matters, of course. What sort of revenge could she even take against Draco Malfoy?

A flash of golden lettering on a brown calf-leather background caught her eye, so high up she had to stand on her tiptoes to read it. _Moste Potente Potions_, by Phineas Bourne? She remembered Ron saying how that was the magical equivalent of Chemistry. She'd always been rather good at Chemistry, and Potions was one of the few subjects listed on her timetable. That certainly sounded promising.

She slid it neatly out of its slot and sank down cross-legged onto the thin grey carpet. The book was undoubtedly old, pages crackling slightly as she cracked it open, and a publication year on the title page written in Latin confirmed it. 1729 – almost three hundred years ago. Not terribly old, as books went, but she was still surprised to see it out on the open shelves like this and not locked away in the Library's special stacks.

Her finger pressed itself onto the indentation where the publisher's name had been printed. Instantly, the book's contents began filtering through her mind, and her eyelids slid shut as snatches of sentences played themselves out against her consciousness.

_Properly brewed, the Polyjuice Potion allows the drinker to transform himself temporarily into the physical form of another…_

Hermione's eyes snapped open. It did _what?_

She flipped through the pages until the correct chapter presented itself, accompanied by a gruesome illustration of a woman whose head was blooming into the body of a spider. The list of ingredients – fluxweed, knotgrass, lacewing flies – meant nothing to her, but the end result was unmistakeable. This concoction purported to be able to give you the appearance of someone else.

Hermione's dark eyes narrowed in thought, and a distinctly contemplative expression passed over her face.

A distant clanging sound heralded the end of lunchtime. It did not penetrate far into the Library, whose silence seemed to have settled deep into Hermione's bones, but she jerked herself out of her ruminations. There'd be time enough for this later. For now, she needed to get to Personal Development with the unknown Professor Flitwick.

She briefly considered borrowing _Moste Potente Potions_, but a tiny 'REF' sticker at the base of its spine told her that would be impossible: it was only a reference book, meant to live in the Library. She exited the shelves with her brain whirring to find Ron and Harry hovering near the entrance.

"Well?" Ron demanded, the moment they were free of the room's oppressive hush. "Did you find anything? Because I don't mind telling you now that _we_ didn't."

Hermione raised her eyebrows at Harry, who shrugged.

"It's just difficult to know where to begin," he said diplomatically. "There are an awful lot of books in there, and I can't say I'm a huge reader."

"Well, fortunately for us, I am," she said. "Meet me…"

She hesitated, looking around them. Though the corridors beneath them thrummed with sound as students hurried to lessons, the Library was the sole occupant of this particular floor and the entire stretch of passageway was deserted.

"Here," she said at last. "Meet me here at eleven tonight. I'll explain everything to you then."

Ignoring Ron as he opened his mouth to question her further, Hermione sped away from them. She had no intention of being late to her very first Personal Development lesson.

* * *

The corridors had cleared of lagging pupils by the time she found the classroom, tucked away on the third floor. She rapped smartly on the door.

"Come in!" an incongruously high-pitched voice squeaked from within.

Rolling her shoulders back, Hermione did.

She thought at first that she was alone in the classroom, and stopped inside the doorway, frowning, before she realised that there was in fact someone else with her. The extremely short professor she had seen at lunchtime was perched on a high stool behind the desk. His head only barely cleared its front, which explained why it had taken her so long to notice him.

"Hermione Granger, sir," she said cautiously. "I'm here for my Personal Development lesson?"

"Yes, yes, I'm Professor Flitwick," the man said, jumping down and waddling around to the front of the desk. "Most interesting gift you have, Miss Granger! A credit to my house!"

"Your house?" she queried.

"I am the Head of Ravenclaw House," he explained. "Please, take a seat! These sessions are designed to help you nurture your gift into the best asset it can possibly be. A baseline assessment, to begin with…"

He gestured at a desk behind her. On it were several books of increasing thickness, ranging from a single narrow book entitled _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ to another one, well over a thousand pages, labelled _Hogwarts: A History._

"We will be seeing whether the length of the book affects the time or quality of your absorption gift," he said. "Whenever you're ready, Miss Granger!"

She had often performed such experiments on her gift herself, when she had been younger, and it was the work of a moment to tap each book's cover and permit its contents to flow into her head. When she turned back around she found Flitwick scribbling frantically in a notebook.

"An average of three point six seconds spent at each book," he intoned. "But a noticeable time difference between the shortest book and the longest. Now, in terms of quality – do you find longer books harder to recall than shorter ones?"

Hermione nodded. "I don't have an exceptional memory in any sense, Professor. Obviously, since there's less to remember from a shorter book than a longer one, I feel as though I recall the shorter book more easily."

He hummed. "Very interesting, Miss Granger. Now for the next stage of the lesson…"

* * *

An hour later, Hermione left the classroom with her head spinning. She and Flitwick had done their best to tease out the limitations of her gift, both physical and mental, and she felt as though she had been through a gruelling PE lesson even though there had been nothing strenuous involved. For homework, Flitwick wanted her to try and absorb two books simultaneously – a task that would probably liquefy her brain, Hermione thought wryly, with how washed-out she was currently feeling.

But there was no time for tiredness. Her timetable decreed that she had two free periods now before the end of the school day. It was time to corner McGonagall again about all the liberties she had taken with the truth.

The corridors cleared slowly as those who had emerged alongside Hermione vanished to other lessons, or found places for private study. She wandered along in search of McGonagall's office. Why on earth hadn't Hogwarts provided her with a map? She was reduced to reading the thin wooden plaques affixed to each door, proclaiming which teacher occupied it. Some doors had large glass panels set into their upper halves and these Hermione rushed past. She had no intention of having some curious professor emerge to ask her what she was doing roaming around like this. It was more than clear that she was the only person at Hogwarts with such mundane concerns as her future scholastic career, and she didn't need to look like any more of a Muggleborn than she already did.

McGonagall's voice met her before McGonagall's door did. Hermione's steps slowed as the faint, muffled sound of two people in conversation floated to her from down the passageway. One was unmistakeably her Transfiguration teacher's Scottish burr; the other was a low masculine twang. The voices were issuing from behind the last door on her left in this particular corridor, and from several metres away she could see that it was one of those glass-panelled ones.

McGonagall was obviously busy: there'd be no meeting with her right now. Hermione considered turning around and instead executing the other little task she'd planned to do this afternoon, but her feet stubbornly refused to move.

If McGonagall's visitor was who she thought it was… she wanted to see him herself.

Before she could berate herself for wasting precious time, Hermione set off at a fast clip, her bag knocking against her hip. As she passed McGonagall's window she swung a casual lightning-fast glance through to see the occupants. Then, having reached the end of the corridor, she pushed through the pair of doors which bookended it and descended the stairs.

The extent to which Draco Malfoy resembled his father was incredible. She had viewed the scene inside the office for less than a second, but it had engraved itself on her memory: a man with long, strikingly blond hair, amidst which threads of distinguished grey were all but invisible, had been sat facing a dark blur which had been McGonagall, his sharp-boned face in almost all respects merely a more mature version of Draco's. Though he had been sitting down she had the impression that he would be remarkably tall when he stood, taller than his son, but propped on the seat of his chair had been a jet-black cane. Perhaps he was injured?

Hermione shook herself in irritation. Lucius Malfoy's injuries were none of her business. She had merely wanted to see the man who had spawned Draco, the man whose gift was sensing others' weaknesses. Having seen him, she no longer wondered from where Draco had obtained his air of innate superiority.

Anyway, she had a job to do now.

Hermione returned to the Library. Most Potente Potions was exactly where she had left it: the one benefit to the fact that she couldn't borrow it was that nobody else could, either, and so she was able to scan it unmolested. Her lip curled as she read the list of ingredients the proper way.

_12 Lacewing flies_

_1 ounce crude antimony_

_4 leeches (unsucculated)_

_16 scruples fluxweed_

_3 drachms pulverised sal ammoniac_

_Knotwood blades, pulverised_

_1 inch powdered horn of Bicorn (lunar extracted)_

_Fillings & rasplings of Saltpeter, Mercury, and Mars_

_Shredded skin of Boomslang_

_Extract of Transfigured-being-to-be_

The vast majority of them were meaningless to her (what the hell was fluxweed, for God's sake?) but the instructions were clear. That Potions existed in this strange magical world she'd fallen into was evident, anyway, since it was listed clearly on her timetable. All she had to do was obtain the ingredients and brew them. There would probably be a supply of hopefully at least some of the ingredients in her Potions classroom, the way the Transfiguration one had already held the materials for their lesson on building household bombs. And the leeches had to strew for twenty-one hours, but there was no reason why the Polyjuice couldn't be ready for use by tomorrow night.

She tamped down the surge of excitement that rose inside her. There were a hundred and one things to plan before anything could be executed. Still… there was no denying that she had the foundations of a real, workable plan. If she could pass herself off as a Slytherin, she could easily follow Draco and his gang around for a while, maybe even infiltrate their common room, and find out exactly what their gifts and weaknesses were.

The only thing that would obviously pose major difficulties was the 'extract of transfigured-being-to-be.' She guessed that meant the DNA of the people they wanted to masquerade as. Nail clippings and body fluids would be unreasonably difficult to get hold of – she hastily suppressed a mental image of extracting Draco's body fluids, since anyway it was hardly logical to Polyjuice as the person she wanted to eavesdrop on – so they'd probably have to go with hair. She, Ron, and Harry could decide tonight exactly which Slytherins they wanted to pretend to be. For now, she was going to go and collect the ingredients. Hermione carefully copied over the contents of the recipe into a blank page in her notebook and stood up. She had about an hour left before the school day finished.

Finding the Potions laboratory was easier than finding McGonagall's office had been. There was no need to wander aimlessly though the corridors; instead, she simply looked at her timetable, which had the location of her Potions classroom listed as Underground Lab. That meant going down. Leaving the Library, Hermione descended staircase after deserted staircase, going deeper and deeper into the castle's bowels, until finally she could go no lower. The floor here was a rocky stone much rougher than the sanded-smooth paving upstairs, and the air held a distinct chill. Hermione shivered and pulled her blazer closer around herself.

There were no windows this deep down, so of course no sunlight. She was in a short, low-ceilinged passageway lit faintly by electric lamps affixed to the stone walls in metal cages. At the end of the passage was a single wooden door with the legend Professor Severus Snape engraved into the neighbouring plaque. Hermione carefully padded closer.

Belatedly, she realised that there was in all likelihood a class going on that very moment, but when she cautiously pressed her ear up against the door, there was silent. That didn't necessarily mean a class _wasn't_ happening: the door looked more than thick enough to muffle any noise. There was only one way to find out. With a deep breath, Hermione hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and tried to look a little more discomposed. She was going to barge in, and if there was a lesson, she'd just pretend she'd read her timetable wrong and mixed up Potions with Transfiguration or something. It was only her first day of school; they could definitely cut her some slack.

The handle turned easily under her fingers, which took care of at least one potential worry she'd had. She threw the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside.

"So sorry, Professor, I think I'm –"

The room was empty. Hermione blinked as she took in the laboratory.

Her own school had had decent science facilities, and the chemistry classrooms at Westminster where she'd planned to go in sixth form had been state-of-the-art. The Potions room at Hogwarts was nothing like either of them. It was freezing cold, even colder than the passageway outside, and only around the size of her dormitory upstairs; six tables, each of which could fit two students, were scattered throughout the small space. An immense old-fashioned chalkboard formed the starring attraction of the room. Light glared down from the ceiling, but everything was somehow tinged a murky shade of green. It took Hermione a moment to realise that the source of the greenness was a tiny window set high into the wall. She could just about see out of it when standing on tiptoe, and she stared in puzzlement at the strange mud-coloured beams outside. What on earth was that?

The next moment a flash of silver darted past the window, and Hermione bit back a scream as she jumped backwards. Had that been – a fish? She looked out with new eyes, and realised with dawning shock that the glass offered a view _underwater._ The classroom itself was completely immersed.

That had undoubtedly been unexpected, but she'd wasted too much time already. Snape wasn't in, and had miraculously gone out without locking the door, but she couldn't risk spending any longer in here than absolutely necessary. Turning resolutely away from the window – she really needed to go outside and explore the actual grounds of Hogwarts whenever she got a spare moment, so she could see what this body of water was – Hermione examined the room for anything that looked even vaguely like a store cupboard.

A door next to the blackboard looked promising. She hurried over, twisting the handle.

The door refused to move.

Hermione swore internally. No wonder Snape hadn't locked the classroom; the real goods were safely secured away behind this door. Why, for the love of God, had she never absorbed a book on lockpicking?

For that matter, why hadn't that been the first bloody lesson at a bloody MI6 spy school?

She rattled the handle again without hope. It stayed stubbornly shut, but she thought that perhaps it had shifted a tiny bit further than it had last time. She was so preoccupied with forcing the door to move away from its hinges that she did not hear the voices until they were almost right on top of her.

" – tomorrow," a painfully familiar drawl was saying, rendered nearly inaudible by the classroom door. "…saw…"

Hermione's heart stopped. Frantically, she scanned the classroom for a hiding place. There was none, and she had absolutely no excuse for being alone in an empty classroom. The big wooden door began to inch open, and in a burst of panic-fuelled strength, Hermione grabbed the store cupboard handle, wrenched it viciously open, and slammed inside.

She was just in time. She had not been able to close the cupboard door all the way, and she watched through the crack in disbelief as Draco stepped into the room with his characteristic fluid prowl. In a school this size, how was it possible to run into the same person so many times?

He was followed by Snape, whose dark eyes casually drifted over the room before he settled next to Draco at a desk just out of Hermione's line of sight. She held her breath as his gaze passed over the store cupboard, but he apparently saw nothing out of the ordinary, for the two of them continued the conversation they had started outside.

Moving an inch at a time, Hermione eased her ingredients list out of her bag. She might as well stock up while she was stuck in here fore the foreseeable future. Draco, at least, would have to leave for dinner eventually, and it seemed Snape did not bother with locking the classroom door. She would be fine…as long as she wasn't discovered in here.

Hermione strained her eyes in the darkness inside the cupboard. The cramped confines were filled with rows of shelves, upon which bottles and vials glinted dully. Their contents were labelled in spidery writing. Hardly daring to breathe in case she inhaled some dust and sneezed, Hermione laboriously made her way along the shelves until she found the vials she needed.

She had not been listening closely to the conversation; Draco had said to Zabini that Snape was his godfather, and she had supposed that they were having some sort of godfather-checking-on-godson rendezvous. However, one word penetrated into her consciousness, and she froze as she waited to see whether she had merely imagined it.

She hadn't.

" – Potter would be here," Draco said. His tone contained a distinct sneer. "He's in Hufflepuff, so you can already tell he's going to be intolerable."

"His father James was too," Snape said calmly. Hermione's eyes widened. She had never heard a teacher being personal about a student before, least of all to another student. The unprofessionalism stunned her for a moment, before she grudgingly decided that MI6 teachers probably had different definitions of 'professionalism.' After all, History of Magic was hardly on the National Curriculum.

"James and Lily Potter were in Gryffindor, weren't they?" Draco was saying. "Do you know what their gifts were?"

Hermione wondered if she were dreaming. Surely, she thought, she wasn't going to be able to answer all her new friend's questions about his dead parents so quickly. She was so absorbed that she paused in looking for the ingredients after having netted only around a third of the listed items.

Disappointingly, Snape said tonelessly, "The Potters aren't your concern, Draco. They've been dead for sixteen years. The Dark Lord saw to that. You simply need to focus on the fact that Professor Dumbledore returns from New York tomorrow. I trust you've been planning accordingly?"

"Yes," Draco said sulkily. "Don't worry about me, Uncle."

"Classes are about to finish," Snape said. There was a scraping sound of chairs being pushed back as they stood. "I shall walk you upstairs…"

His voice got fainter, and Hermione waited for several moments after she heard the classroom door click shut before she dared to leave the cupboard. Her head was spinning. How odd, the clear enmity Snape had for Harry's parents; it had been obvious even in his low, unemotional voice that he had known and loathed them. Even odder was the reference to a Dark Lord, of all things. She had read Lord of the Rings, and the letters D and L had capitalised themselves automatically inside her head as she had listened. That was the only scrap of new information: it seemed that this Dark Lord, whoever or whatever it was, had been responsible in some way for the Potters' deaths. Harry already knew that it had happened when he was a baby, so the date didn't help much. She would tell him all about it tonight.

Moving quickly, Hermione snatched up the rest of the ingredients. Somewhat improbably, they were all there, ready and waiting for her. There was nothing she could do about the broken lock on the cupboard door, but at least it couldn't be traced back to her in any way. She hadn't even had a Potions lesson today.

Hermione threw the last ingredient, a stoppered vial of grey shreds of Boomslang skin, into her bag and flew up the stairs. She was panting by the time she reached Ravenclaw Tower. Lisa Turpin glanced up without interest as Hermione forced herself to walk at a normal speed into the dormitory and slung her bag onto her bed. A life of crime was exhausting. It was only a quarter to four; lessons had finished five minutes ago, and she could hear a low hum of noise as students filed back into the common room below.

She was entitled to a short break, she decided. Then she'd start on the homework Flitwick had given her.

_Then,_ tonight, it was time to brew the Polyjuice.


	6. The Liar's Revenge

**H**ermione had hoped to see Ron and Harry at the Great Hall at dinner, so she could remind them once more of the plan to meet at eleven. Though she went down promptly at six p.m., and sat alone toying with her food as she waited for them to appear, neither showed up. She gave it forty-five minutes before she was forced to admit defeat. Where on earth were they? The official dinner was the students' only opportunity for real food: their common rooms held nothing more substantial than basic snacks, and no meal would be forthcoming until breakfast the next morning.

Even Draco was there at the Slytherin table. He had arrived half an hour after her, trailed as usual by Zabini, Pansy, Nott, Crabbe, and Goyle. Hermione watched them intently out of the corner of her eye. She needed to select suitable candidates for the Polyjuice Potion – people close enough to Draco that he'd be honest in front of them, but not so close that he'd notice anything amiss in their behaviour during the one-hour span the Polyjuice promised.

Zabini was out of the question. He seemed to be the closest thing Draco had to a best friend. Though Hermione had witnessed first-hand the animosity underlying their interactions, they spoke to each other the most, lounging back in their seats and (she assumed, since she couldn't actually hear them) trading barbs with relaxed viciousness. Every so often they laughed together at something one of them had said. It was clear that none of them could pull off passing as Zabini.

As the only female in the group, Pansy was the obvious choice for her. She spoke less often than Zabini and alternated between attacking her food with single-minded enthusiasm and listening to Draco with her head tipped to one side. Draco's attitude to her made her even more suitable; his face, when he looked at her, was suffused with ill-concealed boredom, and he frequently turned back to Zabini the moment Pansy had finished speaking. He wouldn't pay anywhere near enough attention to her to notice if she seemed a little quiet for an hour.

Nott said little too, but one glance at him told Hermione that attempting to Polyjuice into him would be pointless. His body thrummed with restless energy, and he often broke into Draco's conversation with Zabini, saying something that made both boys laugh. That was a dead end. He was too involved with them for it to be safe.

That left only Crabbe and Goyle. In hindsight, Hermione realised that although it was always better to be thorough, she really could have gotten away without such an in-depth analysis of the others; these two were absolutely _perfect_. They said absolutely nothing, did nothing but shovel food mindlessly into their mouths, and – more importantly – Draco paid absolutely no attention to them, except to order one of them to clear his tray away when he'd finished eating. Of course, she'd have to work out which one was Crabbe and which one Goyle beforehand, but that surely couldn't be too difficult.

Hermione found she was smiling. Three suitable candidates had been found, and all that remained was to obtain their hair. Admittedly, easier said than done. If only Harry's invisibility gift didn't have such a glaring weakness…

She allowed herself one last look at Draco to memorise the face of the boy she'd be hopefully destroying at some point in the near future. When she did, she received a horrible shock: he was looking directly at her across the Hall, grey eyes narrowed. She hastily turned her attention back to her plate. Of course, he couldn't even begin to suspect what she had planned, but the catlike, considering look on his face did not inspire her with comfort. She abandoned her tray – clearly, Harry and Ron had no intention of dining tonight – and took the long way out of the Hall to avoid walking past the Slytherin table. No need to draw extra attention to herself.

* * *

Hermione whiled away the hours until night-time in her common room. Though she had no Transfiguration homework, her Personal Development task of absorbing two books simultaneously was taking her far longer than she'd anticipated. The words seemed to jostle each other painfully as they flowed inside her head: nor did they even make sense.

The common room emptied slowly as the hour grew later. Hermione had changed into street clothes of jeans and a jumper. Her phone rested on the sofa beside her, but it was completely dead; though she'd left it charging in her dormitory for the entire day, the screen refused to light up when she stabbed at it. She was uncomfortably aware that she had not contacted her parents once since she'd left home. Hopefully Hogwarts had at least informed them that she'd arrived safely…

At a quarter to eleven, she rose and stretched. There were still a couple of students left in the common room, but they were Upper Sixth boys frantically trying to get through what looked like an immense pile of homework. Neither looked up as she walked casually over to the tower door and closed it gently behind her. The strap of her bag – filled with ingredients – was clutched tightly in her fist. She could hear a faint crackling from inside her bag where she'd stashed her plastic water bottle, in which she'd be brewing the potion in for lack of any better options. It wasn't ideal – the bottle was not large, and she didn't know if the material would affect the Polyjuice – but she'd forgotten to steal a beaker from the Potions lab. This would have to do.

It was very likely Hogwarts had a curfew; it seemed like a reasonable thing for a boarding school to have. If it did, though, Prefect Edgecombe had kept her mouth shut about it. She'd been totally absent except for their brief interaction after the Sorting. Hermione's only option was to sneak up to the Library as inconspicuously as possible and hope that Ron and Harry had the brains to do the same.

Everything was fine until she reached the bottom of Ravenclaw Tower. Hermione stared in dismay at the pitch-black expanse of corridor stretching away in front of her. The electric lights had all been shut off, and the only illumination came from flickering candles that melted away merrily in wall brackets. The whole thing was decidedly darker than she had been expecting.

Still, there was nothing for it. And at least this meant the teachers probably didn't patrol the school to ensure curfew was respected: it seemed improbable that the lights would all be off if that were the case. With her heart in her throat, Hermione trod cautiously up the three flights of stairs that separated her from the Library. She kept one hand outstretched to touch the wall the entire time.

She encountered no obstacles on her way up. The tarry darkness was, of course, unpleasant: her eyes never seemed to adjust no matter how much time passed, and she felt a thrill of nerves at having to pass through the black bars lying in between the pools of light. There was something about seeing Hogwarts at night that made it seem utterly alien. No students, no teachers, not even a solitary scrap of paper lying abandoned on the floor… the fact that barely a hundred people were inhabiting a castle that could have accommodated twice that number was suddenly deeply apparent. She didn't know where the teachers slept, but she was miles away from the nearest dormitory. Nobody would hear her if anything were to happen to her.

If, for instance, Draco or his friends were to decide that tonight was a perfect time for a midnight stroll.

The floor of the Library itself was in total darkness. Hermione stopped halfway up the stairs leading to them, directly next to the last remaining lamp, to wait for Harry and Ron. She was no longer worried about being seen. It was more than obvious by now that not a single soul was wandering about.

"Hermione?"

The whisper floated down to her from several steps up. She jumped.

"Harry?"

The boy himself appeared out of the gloom of the upper steps, wrapped in a thick grey dressing-gown. She raised an eyebrow.

"Looking cosy there."

He grinned and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "It's warm, what can I say. Made it here okay?"

"Yes, all fine," she said. "I'm glad _you _made it alright. I looked for you and Ron at dinner, but I couldn't find you."

"Oh, yeah, we went exploring to see if we could find the kitchens," he said nonchalantly.

The smile of welcome froze on Hermione's face. "You… went exploring? Together?"

"We did look to see if we could find you too and bring you along," he added hurriedly, as though realising what his words sounded like. "We just couldn't find you."

"It's fine," she said. "I was in Ravenclaw Tower." The words were mechanical. A slightly nauseous pit had yawned open in the depths of her stomach. _Of course _the only two friends she'd made were busy getting closer to each other than to her… probably by this time next week, they'd forget she'd ever once been part of their incipient friendship. And thanks to Draco Malfoy, she could no longer count on the support of her own housemates. She remembered how Padma had detached herself the moment she'd learnt of their enmity, and how the other girls had been completely indifferent to the prospect of getting to know her the moment they'd realised she was Muggleborn.

"Where's Ron?" she asked, forcing herself to keep her tone light. "We really ought to get started soon."

Her question was answered in the next few moments. There was a low clanging sound audible from several feet lower down the staircase, and the light of a candle flamed off Ron's head as he took the steps two at a time up to them.

"Here," he puffed. "Sorry I'm late, forgot the way."

Like Harry, he was wearing a dressing-gown, under which his striped white-and-blue pyjamas were visible. Hermione nodded at him.

"Right, okay, so… let's discuss the plan."

"You _do _have one then?" Ron asked doubtfully. "We didn't spend very long in the Library at lunch…"

"I have a great one," she assured him. Her gaze darted around. Though they were alone, she was uncomfortably aware that they were exposed out in the open. "But we should probably go somewhere else to discuss it."

"The Library?" Harry suggested.

She shook her head. "It'll be locked this late at night, I think. How about the bathroom? There's one on the next floor."

"The _girls' _bathroom?" Ron's voice rose in consternation.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It'll be fine, honestly, nobody's trekking half a mile away from their common rooms in the middle of the night just to use this bathroom. Your masculinity will be perfectly safe." She started off down the stairs, letting them fall into a line behind her.

"It's not my masculinity I'm worried about," Ron grumbled. "I just don't want to give some poor unsuspecting girl a heart attack when she comes in for a piss!"

Harry snickered, and after a moment Hermione joined him. She actively concentrated on throwing off the feelings of isolation that had threatened to swamp her when she'd learnt they'd been spending time bonding without her. They were here now, ready to help her take down Draco, and that was all that mattered.

Speaking of Draco, that reminded her –

"Harry, I heard something about your parents today," she said over her shoulder.

He stopped dead. "What?"

"Keep walking," she said, reaching back to grab his wrist and pull him along with her. His skin was warm under hers. "I was hiding in the Potions lab when Snape came in –"

Ron choked. "Do you have a death wish?"

At the same time, Harry said, frowning, "Why the hell were you hiding in the Potions lab?"

Hermione realised she had started at the wrong part of the story. "Let's just get in the bathroom and I'll tell you from the beginning," she said. She led them along the floor just beneath the Library until they arrived at the door she had noticed on her way up that afternoon. The outline of a girl in a long skirt was discreetly painted onto the wood.

Inside, it was not as dark as it could have been; a crackling ray of silver light emanated from a bar hanging above the row of sinks, and moonlight shimmered in through the frosted glass windows. Ron made a small unhappy sound as he trailed her inside.

"My mum would kill me if she knew I was in here…"

"Well, she doesn't," Harry said pragmatically, though amusement lurked beneath his words. He exchanged an eyeroll with Hermione. "Want to tell us what's up now?"

Carefully, she removed the ingredients she had stolen and lined them up next to a sink.

"Here's the plan," she said. "We're going to be brewing Polyjuice Potion. I found the recipe in the Library today – it lets you look like somebody else for exactly one hour after drinking it. I went down to the Potions lab this afternoon to get the ingredients, and Snape and Draco came in while I was in there."

Ron shuddered. "How are you still alive?"

"I hid inside the store cupboard, but it was definitely a close call," she admitted. "I didn't catch most of what they were saying, but I heard Draco say… that you were intolerable, Harry. Sorry," she added awkwardly.

He laughed. "Why are _you_ apologising? I did get that impression off him, though I've no idea what on earth I've done to him…"

"He's just a git," Ron said grimly. "All Malfoys are, trust me. I've known him since we were born, and he is a bona fide certified bastard."

"Well, I can't disagree with you there, but Snape agreed with him," Hermione said. She hesitated. "Then he said… that your dad, James, was the same way. Draco asked what gifts your parents had had, and Snape didn't answer."

Harry's mouth tightened, but his voice was even when he asked, "Anything else?"

She paused. She had had the most compunctions about sharing the next part of the conversation. In hindsight, it seemed mildly ridiculous and wildly inappropriate. And after all, she'd only known Harry for two days. What if hearing about his parents' deaths impacted his mental stability, or something?

Still, she had no choice. He deserved to know.

"I can't really explain this next bit," she said, "but Snape said someone called the Dark Lord was responsible for your parents' deaths."

A reaction came from the last place Hermione had expected it. Both she and Harry swung their heads to look at Ron, who had let out a loud gasp.

"The Dark Lord?" he breathed.

She frowned at him. "Does that mean something to you? Beyond Sauron?"

"Beyond whom?" Ron said blankly, but carried on without waiting for a response. "Shit, Harry. That's intense. Sorry you had to hear it that way."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Harry said. His foot tapped agitatedly against the floor. "Who's this Dark Lord figure?"

Ron sighed. "Well, you were basically raised as a Muggle, so I guess you wouldn't know," he said. "The Dark Lord was like, enemy number one for MI6 back in the eighties and nineties. That's just a title he gave himself. His real name is V…Vo…"

They stared at him as his mouth worked uselessly around the syllables. Hermione tried not to let her rising impatience get the better of her. "What's wrong?" she demanded.

"He had this huge culture of fear around his name, and there are a lot of people who still won't say it, like my parents," he said defensively. "I _can _say it though. Just give me a second. His name was V… _Voldemort_," he finally managed, in a rush. Instantly he glanced around fearfully, as though terrified the name would conjure up the man himself.

"Voldemort," Hermione repeated thoughtfully. "Flight of death. He was French?"

Ron shrugged. "No idea. But anyway, he was really big about twenty years ago. Then, in 2000, he died in an explosion in Russia. There's been no trouble from his lot since."

"Russia," Harry repeated. "My parents died in Russia, in 2000. Hagrid said it was a mission gone wrong."

"I bet the mission had something to do with him," Ron said. "There was a special counterterrorism unit in MI6, the Order of the Phoenix, that was dedicated just to tackling him. My parents were in it before they retired."

Hermione agreed. "Yes, it's too big of a coincidence otherwise… Are you okay, Harry? I'm sorry, that's very big news to drop on you with no warning."

"I'm fine," he said briefly. "If they died taking out this – this terrorist – I guess I'm glad that at least they died for a good cause. What exactly was that cause, by the way?"

Ron blinked. "Huh?"

"Well, terrorists tend to have causes," Harry elaborated. "What was Voldemort's?"

Ron winced. "He was one of those blood purists. He, er, hated Muggles and especially Muggleborns, so he set off bombs and things to murder as many of them as he could. I'm not surprised it was Malfoy and Snape talking about him. A lot of the old pureblood families in the Sacred Twenty-Eight thought he was the bees' knees. Couldn't get enough of him. Lucius Malfoy was his right-hand man, but then after the Dark Lord died, he escaped prosecution by pretending he'd been threatened into following him." An ugly look flashed across his face. "Load of horseshit, obviously, but he's rich and well-connected, so they were happy to believe him."

Hermione closed her eyes.

Well, that explained a lot. No wonder Draco had been so violently opposed to her presence: he was the son of the very man who'd assisted a blood-status terrorist in committing his crimes. She'd always known he was dangerous. But to be so closely connected to an actual _criminal_… that was something else entirely. She was a middle-class girl from the suburbs of London whose parents were dentists; she'd never even dabbled in drugs like some of her classmates had. And now here she was, on the radar of a boy with eyes like bullets and a smile like a knife.

So much for McGonagall's whole 'blood status hardly matters' spiel.

"Well," she said briskly, "I suppose that's why Draco's so keen to see me run out of school. Even if this Voldemort person is dead, old habits die hard. Good thing we have a plan to take him down."

"We don't actually have a plan to take him down," Harry said. "We have the plan for a plan to potentially gather information in order to take him down. Have you even thought about who we'd Polyjuice into?"

Patience, Hermione reminded herself. She had to be nice to Harry. This was probably the most he'd heard about his parents in sixteen years.

"Yes, I have," she said. "It's a real shame your invisibility gift is practically useless, because that would have solved a lot of issues, but I've pinpointed three promising people for us: Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle."

Ron snorted. "So basically, Malfoy's lackeys?"

"They're stupid enough to be ideal," she said. "We just need to know enough about them to be able to pass as them for an hour. To be honest, being able to tell the difference between Crabbe and Goyle would be a good start…"

"Crabbe's the one who looks like a moron, and Goyle's the one who looks like a thickhead," Ron said unhelpfully.

Harry broke into their conversation. "What exactly are we planning to do with them in the meantime? We can't risk them bursting onto the scene, I reckon Malfoy might get suspicious if he sees two Crabbes at the same time."

"Well," Hermione said, chewing her lip, "That's admittedly quite an issue –"

"I have an idea," Ron put in unexpectedly.

She and Harry both turned to him with raised eyebrows. He looked sheepish.

"You know how I told you Fred and George run a joke shop?" he said. "They packed me off to school with a whole bunch of pretty useful stuff. One of their inventions is this sweet called Fainting Fancies. Knocks you out cold a few minutes after you eat one, guaranteed to get you of lessons. All we need to do is make sure they eat it somehow, then stash them in an empty classroom or something. Then when we're done we can give them the antidote and make a run for it."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "Ron, you're a genius," she said, astounded. "That's actually a really decent plan." She smiled at him, mentally upgrading her assessment of his intelligence levels.

"It's nothing," he said modestly, but the tips of his ears turned pink. He grinned shyly back.

"Okay, now that's sorted," Harry said, "shall we get on with brewing the actual potion then?" He rolled his sleeves up expectantly.

Hermione winced as she reread the first line of the instructions. "Boys, I'm going to have to ask you to leave for this first bit. Trust me, you don't want to know _exactly_ what goes into this potion…"

* * *

"Right," Hermione said two hours later. Her eyes were gritty with tiredness, but an exhausted triumph swelled through her as she scrutinised her water bottle.

She'd ended up brewing the potion in the larger container. It hadn't even been too difficult: first had been the fluxweed, soaked in her own urine as per the instructions (she'd sent the boys outside for that bit, since they truly did not need to know, and she was trying to erase it from her own memory too). Then she'd added the lacewing flies, knotgrass, Boomslang skin, and saltpetre. At this point the potion was supposed to have a 'mercuried texture', which she took to mean that the glinting, dull silvery colour was a sign she was on the right track. Last had been the leeches.

Now it was time to let the mixture 'strew' for twenty-one hours. Hermione carefully screwed the lid back onto the bottle and placed it back in her bag.

"We're done?" Harry said. His voice was rough with sleepiness. He and Ron, abandoning scruples of cleanliness, had sunk down to sit on the bathroom floor long ago. She'd batted them away impatiently every time they'd tried to help, so they'd spent the intervening time playing around with their gifts. Harry was currently invisible: the neck of his dressing gown gaped open emptily, and his glasses were perched on thin air. Hermione regarded his clothes critically.

"Yes, we're done. It really is unfortunate you can't make the things you're touching invisible too, that would cut down on the number of people we'd have to steal hair from."

"You could always go naked," Ron suggested. "Not like anyone would know."

Harry faded slowly back into view. "No thanks," he retorted, crinkling his nose. "I don't plan on sitting my naked arse down on _anything _in this castle. Besides, I need my glasses to see." He rose and dusted himself off. "How exactly are we planning on getting this hair?"

"Simple," Hermione said. "We'll crush up the Fainting Fancies, add it to their food at dinner tomorrow, then get the hair once they're unconscious."

"You make it sound so easy," Ron muttered. "How the hell are we going to pull that off?"

"It'll be fine!" Hermione said brightly. She was running on a combination of sleep deprivation and vengefulness, a potent combination that made her feel slightly lightheaded. The sharp edges of the world around her were a little blurry somehow in the light, and she focused determinedly on Harry's face, which threatened to bleed away into the darkness.

"It'll be fine," she repeated, with less enthusiasm but more conviction. "I – we – are not failing at the last hurdle."

Ron still looked sceptical, but it was one in the morning and none of them was in the mood to argue. Silently, they helped Hermione clean up the detritus left over from the potion-brewing. She carefully wrapped her water bottle in wads of tissue paper and secreted it back into her bag.

Though it was even more unlikely that anybody would be wandering the corridors at one am than at eleven, they left the bathroom individually. "Goodnight," Hermione murmured as she left first. "See both at lunch tomorrow."

The boys mumbled back sleepy farewells. Feeling tired, but jumpy with adrenaline, Hermione made her soundless way back to Ravenclaw Tower. Not being friends with any of her housemates was suddenly a boon: there was nobody who would notice she hadn't been in her bed, or care if they had.

When she slid under the covers, Draco's high-boned face was the last thing she saw before sleep claimed her.

* * *

Luck favoured Hermione. She had a free period first thing the next morning, and so she was able to sleep late, rising at the luxuriously late hour of nine am. It meant she missed breakfast, but she wasn't hungry anyway; she was too keyed up with excitement. She kept peeking surreptitiously into her bag, where the bottle of Polyjuice Potion rested in its papery cocoon. The sight calmed something deep inside her.

Next however, was Divination with a Professor S. Trelawney, and here was where luck stopped favouring her. Hermione entered the classroom five minutes early and settled into an empty seat. The other Ravenclaws at the back of the room were now completely ignoring her, but she could not bring herself to care, not when the heavy weight of the potion in her bag made it swing reassuringly into her hipbone. She gave into impulse and caressed the bottle briefly as she pulled out her notebook to write the date. Was it just her, or did it spark with friendly warmth beneath her fingertips?

Stop it, Hermione, she told herself sternly. You're going mental. It's an inanimate object, for God's sake.

"Missed me, my darling Mudblood?"

Her pen jerked, scrawling a long black line across the page. Slowly, Hermione raised her eyes.

Draco dropped lightly into the chair in front of hers and twisted around, smirking. Unlike her, he looked as though he had had a good night's sleep: the ivory paleness of his skin was unmarred by bruises, and his white-blond hair was parted to the side with brutal severity. She had the sudden desire to muss up its straight perfection until it was as messy as her own straggling braids.

Crabbe and Goyle took the seats on either side of him, sitting with audible thumps. It seemed this was one class the Ravenclaws shared with the Slytherins, for a number of other green-tied clad students Hermione didn't recognise had filed into the classroom.

"Malfoy," she said. She kept her voice unaffected. "Been a long time, hasn't it? All of…" she consulted her watch with exaggerated interest, "about fifteen hours since we last spoke, hasn't it?"

He lifted a brow. "Counting the minutes?" A lazy smirk. "God knows I was."

"Of course not," she said, but her gaze were locked on his, and she was not wholly certain if it was true.

She had never had an enemy before. It was oddly invigorating.

Something passed over his face at her words, and Hermione wished abruptly that she was better at recognising emotions: it was a strange expression, one that made his eyes glitter like gemstones, and his mouth curved in a razor smile. His lips parted to say something. She watched, waiting to hear what he would say, dreading it and looking forward to it at the same time.

Whatever he would have said, she would never know, for at that moment the Divination professor came in.

Professor S. Trelawney was a tall, thin woman with greying brown hair that flared in crimped curls around her face and was held back by an incongruously multicoloured headband. A pair of thick glasses magnified her light green eyes to startling proportions: when she got to the front of the classroom she did nothing but blink at them, looking like some particularly dim species of insect.

"Good morning, class," she said in a fluttering whisper. "Welcome to your first Divination lesson. My name is Professor Trelawney. I will be teaching you to exploit the threads of time and vision in your missions, so you know to make the right choices and avoid the wrong ones." She paused dramatically. "In short… I will be teaching you the art of reading the future."

An impressed hush swept over the crowd, into which Hermione's disbelieving "You've got to be _kidding_ me" fell like an exploding bomb.

Trelawney's pale gaze fixed itself on her. "Something to say, my child?" she asked. Her words had an edge to them.

Hermione hesitated, aware that every eye in the room was on her. Draco was looking highly entertained. She didn't need to do his job for him by ending up expelled on her very second day.

"No, Professor," she muttered through clenched teeth. "Sorry, stubbed my toe."

"It happens to the best of us," Trelawney said sweetly. "And indeed, my dear, it will occur again tonight before you go to dinner, just as you are exiting your common room. Fear not – it will only _feel _as though your toe is broken. No medical attention will be necessary."

With a satisfied smile, she resumed the lesson.

"Not all of you have the True Sight, of course. That is a gift granted to very few, and the price it exacts is great. But the gifted blood you all possess means that you are more open than most to sensing the eddies of Fate swirling about you. You will simply need to be taught to harness them. Today, we shall be starting with crystal balls."

Hermione listened to Trelawney lecture on with growing incredulity. To think she'd traded in a Biology A-level for this fortune-telling rubbish! Most of the class looked to be hanging onto her every word, though Draco seemed to be doodling: his gleaming head was bent over his desk, and his arm was moving in loose, graceful motions that suggested something was being sketched. That did it. If he, a pureblood and all, didn't think the lesson was worth listening to, it most probably wasn't. She took notes on autopilot for the next ten minutes, but her real attention was devoted to analysing the backs of Crabbe and Goyle's heads. One of them had a far rounder face than the other, but beyond that they were simply a pair of remarkably generic white boys. Even their haircuts were identical buzzcuts. That was going to complicate the hair-removal process even further; there was so little left on their heads that they might actually notice if a patch mysteriously vanished.

Trelawney eventually finished droning on, and handed out to each student a murky crystal ball. Hermione regarded its depths with misgiving. While she was just about prepared to accept that the professor's gift involved some measure of seeing the future, she could not believe that the sort of instrument used in fair tents would help her in any way. And she was right: no matter how much she glared at the grey smoke roiling restlessly inside the glass, it refused to coalesce into a meaningful image.

Typical.

"See anything, Mudblood?" Draco's voice was low. He had half-turned in his chair to speak to her, fingers splayed over the globe in his hands.

"Sure," she said coolly. "I see you leaving me the hell alone."

Only part of his face was visible, but she could see the edge of his delighted grin. "Lying again, my love. You do make rather a habit of it, don't you?"

"Well, do _you _see anything?" she challenged. For some reason, she was struggling to tear her gaze away from the sight of his long, slim digits caressing the crystal. She swallowed.

"Maybe I do," he said contemplatively. "Maybe I see myself _not _leaving you the hell alone, as you so charmingly put it. You Mudbloods have quite a way with words..."

He turned back around. She frowned at his back. Something about his phrasing was a little odd somehow, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. At least his hands were no longer visible; there had been something entirely too magnetic about them.

Draco did not bother her for the rest of the lesson, and when it finished he left before her, tossing her a wink over his shoulder as Crabbe and Goyle followed him out. Hermione eyed his departure with a sense of impotent fury. God, she couldn't wait for tonight to come. He was taking over far too much of her time and life; she just needed to unearth his weakness, use it against him, and then she never needed to think about him ever again.

She _absolutely _couldn't wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, comments and kudos are hugely appreciated and will make me write faster. I'm VERY interested to hear what theories you have about what Draco's gift and weakness are!


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